Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2008

I thank the Republican whip for yielding.

On Monday, the House is not in session. On Tuesday, 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 Wednesday and Thursday, the House will meet at 10 a.m. for legislative business. On Friday, the House will meet at 9 a.m. for legislative business.

We will consider several bills under suspension of the rules. The final list of suspension bills will be announced by the close of business tomorrow.

We will take any pending votes on H.R. 6063, the NASA Authorization Act of 2008, which we will debate later today after this colloquy; and we will consider H.R. 5781, the Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act of 2008. We will also consider H.R. 5876, Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2008; and we hope to consider and I expect to consider the Iraq-Afghanistan supplemental appropriations bill.

I yield back.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

He observes that I said we hope to have it on the floor. I want to reiterate that I hoped each one of those weeks that we would have it on the floor, and I hope that we will have it on the floor next week.

I would say to my friend that I hope we have a bill on the floor next week, pass it through the House and pass it through the Senate and that the President will sign that bill. Obviously, one of the reasons that we have not gotten the bill on the floor as quickly as I had hoped is that there have been very, very substantial discussions between the House and the Senate, between the House and the White House, and the Senate and the White House about what their thoughts are with respect to various aspects of the supplemental bill and what they would or would not consider a signable bill.

So I think there have been extensive discussions on that. I am hopeful that

when we finally pass something to the President he will sign it and we will have that bill done. As the gentleman indicated, we are aware of the fact that it is timely that we pass this bill certainly within the next 2 weeks. And when I say pass it, not just pass it but have it signed by the President so we have a law in effect that gives the President and the Department of Defense the funds they need to continue the deployment that currently exists. That does not adopt the policy of the appropriateness of that, but it does recognize the reality of the fact that we have men and women in Iraq and Afghanistan.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

As the gentleman will recall, we had a bill on this House to make those funds available. It did not pass. It did not pass as you recall because many of your Members voted present. I think they would have supported it, and many of our Members did not support that funding. They want to see the policies changed. I agree with them on the policies.

The fact is that we now have that funding passed from the Senate in the supplemental to us and we are trying to resolve as you know the differences. But there is a desire to get that bill done in a timely fashion so that the problems that you portray, which I believe are accurate, do not occur.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

As I said last week, with respect to more drilling in various parts of the country, whether it is in Alaska, in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge or on the Outer Continental Shelf, I would like to reiterate the information I referred to last week, but before I do that let me say that we are very supportive of any legislation that will lead this country towards energy independence within the framework of what we think is necessary and needed. Now I say it in this context. I support and I think we support on this side a diversified clean energy portfolio. We think that is critically important for our country.

In the area of supporting energy supply, I hope the Senate will return the tax extender bill which invests in alternative energy sources which can be put online so we can be more energy independent and not dependent upon the producers of petroleum, many of whom are not friendly to us, and others of whom are not as reliable as we would like.

I have listened for some period of time in the last few weeks that all we need to do to solve this problem is more drilling. We don't believe that is the case. In fact, as I said to the gentleman last week, we have nearly a whole refinery's worth of capacity idle right now.

What I mean by that, Mr. Whip, is that our refineries were operating, at the end of last week, at 89 percent capacity. That is the lowest operational capacity of refineries in our country in the last 10 years at this time of year. So our refineries still have another 8 to 9 percent capacity. 8 to 9 percent is a very significant portion.

Now, we've introduced two bills today to make oil companies use their existing leases. Before we go to new leases, before we go to the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge or the Outer Continental Shelf, which is very controversial on both sides of the aisle, we believe that oil and gas companies should use the present leases they have. They hold nearly 68 million acres of Federal land and waters on which they are not producing oil and gas. These 68 million acres of leased but currently inactive land and waters could produce, I tell my friend, an additional 4.8 million barrels of oil and 44.7 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day. So that when we talk about looking for new spots to drill, we first ought to look at those spots. Vast acreage, millions of acres have already been authorized.

If we took those actions, I tell my friend, the information I have is that it would nearly double total U.S. oil production and increase domestic national gas production by 75 percent. That is on existing leaseholds.

It would also cut U.S. oil imports by more than a third, if all we did was use existing leaseholds. It would be more than six times the estimated peak production from the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

In other words, using existing leases that have already been authorized, would produce six times what the projections are, and the most optimistic projections are for the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.

Let me say that we also introduced two bills today to look at and study the investments in oil futures, in petroleum futures. We're very concerned that that is having an impact on price, not because of supply and demand, but because of speculation. Mr. Dingell and Mr. Barton, as you know, have cosponsored legislation, and I've cosponsored it myself with them.

So I'm hopeful that we will move ahead vigorously, as I know the gentleman from Missouri wants to do, to see what can be done to make our country more energy efficient, to utilize the energy sources which are already authorized.

I would say one additional thing in terms of refineries. There's been some discussion about refineries. There's been one application for a new refinery in the last 30 years. One application. It was approved. That refinery has not been built, notwithstanding the fact that the application was approved.

And obviously, with refinery capacity not being at the capacity it's been at in the last 10 years, it would seem that a new refinery was not built because the oil companies made a determination that it was not needed because, at this critical time when demand is so high, they're not operating at peak performance.

So let me just reiterate that we all want to work together to try to have our country be energy independent. We think that's important for our national security, our economic security. And indeed, we think that going to alternative energies is critically important for the health of our global climate.

I yield back.

I thank my friend for yielding.

My friend mentioned the Outer Continental Shelf, and I agree with him. But the facts I have are this. Four times more natural gas is available in areas already open to drilling. Let me reiterate that. In areas already approved and open for drilling, four times more natural gas is available than in OCS waters protected by the moratorium.

In other words, that which is protected has only 25 percent perceived to be available than does the already approved available Outer Continental Shelf areas. So if we started vigorously pursuing exploration and drilling in those areas, we'd get 75 percent more than we get now.

In fact, the figure is that we are using only 18 percent of the 7,740 active leases currently available on the Outer Continental Shelf, only 1,655 are in production; so that when we talk about the problem is that the Democrats are not allowing us to drill and explore and to recover resources that are in our Outer Continental Shelf or on our lower 48, that is not, I think, accurate. I think it's not accurate because of the extraordinarily high percentage of currently approved leaseholds that are not being utilized in this very day.

Now, I'm sure that the oil companies, very frankly, want to increase supply and see prices come down. I say that somewhat with tongue in cheek. If perhaps we were finding more supply, utilizing those leaseholds, perhaps the price would not be quite as high and the profits wouldn't be either.

But I will tell you that Americans are, at $4 a gallon, seeing the companies that are selling them oil receiving extraordinarily high profits. God bless them for getting profits. They have invested, they've worked hard. They put their capital at risk. I'm for that.

But at the same time, when they are failing to use leaseholds that would bring more supply, that would presumably then bring down the price, I think the American public have a right to ask, why are we only using 18 percent of the currently available leaseholds on the Outer Continental Shelf and about one-quarter or a little less than one- quarter of what's available on the mainland?

I yield back to my friend.

I have an automobile.

My friend, at the beginning of his last comments, said ``on public lands.'' I want to make it very clear that the implication, perhaps that we're not allowing that on public lands, there are, as I said, 80 percent of the already authorized spots on public land not being utilized today; so that this is not a question of where we have not authorized drilling. We're for that. We want to find more product.

What we are saying is that we have now got the majority of authorized spots being unutilized. Now, why that is so, when the product is getting the highest price it's ever gotten, which ought to be incentive, in and of itself, to look for new product and to explore and to drill and to get new product to the market, which would then bring the price down.

I hope that nobody is controlling supply simply to escalate price. We know that when demand goes up and supply is constrained, that prices inevitably rise. The American public is paying the price for that. Great profits are being made. But it is adversely affecting our economy and our families. And we share your view that we want to address this problem.

But I want to say, we talk about today. Unfortunately, for too long, I'm old enough to have experienced the gas lines of the late seventies where you waited hours to get gasoline in your car. Hopefully that won't reoccur.

But had we, Democrats and Republicans, Americans all, focused in a disciplined way on looking for, developing more efficient automobiles, more efficient refrigerators and other electric utilities, focused on conservation, focused on alternative sources of energy, we would be far ahead of the game.

In the final analysis, we cannot get distracted, in my opinion. We need to go down both paths, making sure today we have the most efficient process possible but that tomorrow we're energy independent, because in the final analysis, that will be the only way in which we will continue to keep our economy moving, our national security intact, and our environment clean and healthy.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1276 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Madam Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield the customary 30 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart). All time yielded during consideration of the rule is for debate only.

General Leave

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 1276.

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

House Resolution 1276 provides for consideration of H.R. 5876, the Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act of 2008, under a structured rule. The rule provides 1 hour of general debate equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking minority member of the Committee on Education and Labor.

The rule makes in order two amendments that were submitted for consideration and are printed in the Rules Committee report, including a bipartisan manager's amendment. The rule waives all points of order against consideration of the bill, except for clauses 9 and 10 of rule XXI. Finally, the rule provides one motion to recommit with or without instructions.

The bill before us today, the Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs for Teens Act, responds to an urgent need to protect our Nation's vulnerable children. An estimated 20 to 30,000 U.S. teenagers attend private residential programs, including therapeutic boarding schools, wilderness camps, boot camps, and behavioral modification facilities. These residential facilities are intended to help treat children with behavioral, emotional or mental health problems.

However, many of these facilities are loosely regulated, if they are even regulated at all. As a result, some of the very facilities that are supposed to be providing a safe environment for our Nation's vulnerable children have, instead, provided us with some of the most shocking accounts of child abuse and neglect we have ever been witness to.

A comprehensive report by the Government Accountability Office recently uncovered thousands of allegations of child abuse and neglect at private residential programs for teens. Tragically, in a number of these cases, this abuse and neglect led to the child's death.

I won't describe the horrifying stories, but I will say that they go far beyond simple maltreatment. The stories are deplorable. They are inexcusable, and they are inhumane.

This bill, H.R. 5876, will keep children safe by imposing new national standards for residential treatment programs. These standards include prohibitions on denying children food, water, clothing, shelter or medical care for any reason, including as a form of punishment.

The bill upholds core moral values by specifically prohibiting programs from engaging in practices that physically, sexually or mentally abuse or torment children in their care.

It requires programs to train staff in understanding what constitutes child abuse and neglect and how to report it, and it requires programs to have emergency medical care plans in place.

The bill also includes several other provisions, such as requiring programs to disclose to parents the qualifications of staff, notifying parents of substantiated reports of abuse, and providing grant money to States if they develop their own standards that are at least as strong as the national ones.

On a personal note, I would like to say that my wife, Kathie, and I are proud parents of three children, two of which we adopted from foster care. I can tell you from my own personal experience that nothing is more important to a child's life than having a secure home.

No child should ever be subject to abuse or neglect, especially when in the care of those who are supposed to be providing treatment.

I commend Chairman Miller for his tireless efforts on behalf of our Nation's children. I strongly urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this commonsense legislation.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I would like to acknowledge that my colleague from Florida has been a true champion on behalf of the pro- democracy forces in Cuba; that certainly I join him in denouncing any of the horrible acts that he described today, and I praise the emotion and spirit with which he brings his fight towards democracy in Cuba to the floor. Thank you, Mr. Diaz-Balart.

But I will tell you, however much I praise his efforts there, with regard to the seven amendments that he talked about, the seven Republican amendments submitted in the Rules Committee, they were disposed of in I believe a very fair and equitable manner.

Two were withdrawn by the authors. One was addressed in the manager's amendment. The amendment of the gentleman from Utah (Mr. Bishop) was addressed in the manager's amendment. Two amendments amended portions of the bill that were deleted by the manager's amendment and thus are moot; and two dealt with earmarks that are not in the bill. So frankly, all of the amendments were dealt with in a fair and evenhanded manner. I believe this truly is a bipartisan bill.

It is with that spirit, Madam Speaker, that I yield 5 minutes to the gentlewoman from New York (Mrs. McCarthy), the chairman of the Healthy Families Subcommittee and a champion for children.

Madam Speaker, I have one additional speaker at this time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller), the chairman of the Education and Labor Committee and a true champion for children in this House.

I yield the gentleman 2 additional minutes.

I am the final speaker on my side of the aisle.

Madam Speaker, in closing, I'd like to remind my friend and colleague from Florida that it has been the other body, the Republicans in the other body and the White House who have stymied the Democratic efforts to actually reduce gas prices and provide alternative energy for this country. Certainly, it is a problem, and certainly, the American people are very frustrated at paying $4 or more, in my State it's much more for a gallon of gas. But had we at least moved in a new direction, we could be heading in that direction. But we have been totally stymied by the White House and the Senate on these questions.

Madam Speaker, today's bill deals with children, and there is an urgent problem in many residential treatment facilities that have gone unchecked for far too long and must be addressed. H.R. 5876 will go a long way towards ensuring the safety of our Nation's children who depend on these treatment facilities.

Again, I ask my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support this commonsense legislation to protect our kids in these treatment facilities.

I urge a ``yes'' vote on the rule and on the previous question.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida is as follows:

Amendment to H. Res. 1276 Offered by Mr. Lincoln Diaz-Balart of Florida

At the end of the resolution, add the following:

Sec. 3. Immediately upon the adoption of this resolution

the House shall, without intervention of any point of order,

consider in the House the bill (H.R. 2279) to expedite the

construction of new refining capacity on closed military

installations in the United States. All points of order

against the bill are waived. The bill shall be considered as

read. The previous question shall be considered as ordered on

the bill and any amendment thereto to find passage without

intervening motion except: (1) one hour of debate on the bill

equally divided and controlled by the chairman and ranking

member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and the

chairman and ranking member of the Committee on Armed

Services; and (2) an amendment in the nature of a substitute

if offered by Representative Dingell of Michigan or

Representative Skelton of Missouri, which shall be considered

as read and shall be separately debatable for 40 minutes

equally divided and controlled by the proponent and an

opponent; and (3) one motion to recommit with or without

instructions.

(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-llinois) 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 1091th 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.

Madam Speaker, I yield back my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

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

I rise today in strong support of H.R. 5876, the Stop Child Abuse in Residential Programs For Teens Act of 2008. Last year, a 17-year-old boy in a Maryland residential program for teens became unresponsive after he was physically restrained by staff members. According to the press reports, prosecutors alleged that the staff members waited 41 minutes to call 911 because they thought the boy was faking. The boy died. A 15-year-old boy in a wilderness camp in Colorado died in May 2007 from a staph infection. According to the press reports, State authorities said the boy showed observable signs of infection that were neglected by the camp staff members.

Tragically, these recent deaths are not isolated cases. The Government Accountability Office has thousands of cases and allegations of child abuse and neglect stretching back decades in teen residential programs, including boot camps, wilderness camps and therapeutic boarding schools.

The Education and Labor Committee has closely examined a number of these neglect and abuse cases, including cases that resulted in the death of a child. We have heard stories about program staff members forcing children to remain in so-called stress positions for hours at a time, to stand with bags over their heads and nooses around their necks in mock hangings, to eat foods to which they were allergic, even as they got sick, or to eat their own vomit. We have heard from parents of children who died preventible deaths at the hands of untrained, uncaring staff members.

Bob Bacon testified that program staff members mocked his son, Aaron, when the 16-year-old boy asked for medical help, calling him a faker. For weeks, the staff deprived Aaron of adequate food and water even though his weight loss became frighteningly apparent. When Bob and his wife Sally went to the mortuary to see their son, they found scars of abuse and dried skin stretched taut over Aaron's bones.

Cynthia Harvey told the Education and Labor Committee that program staff members waited 45 minutes before summoning appropriate medical care for her daughter, Erica, who had collapsed and was having difficulty breathing.

Paul Lewis testified that program staff members ignored his son Ryan's obvious signs of emotional distress, denying him psychiatric care that could have saved his life.

In addition to wrenching stories like these parents told, the Education and Labor Committee has also heard from adults who attended these programs as teens. They too were victims of physical and emotional abuse and witnessed other children being abused.

Madam Chairman, these abuses have been allowed to continue unchecked because of the weak patchwork of State and Federal regulations governing teen residential programs.

An exhaustive 18-month study by the Government Accountability Office showed that State licensing programs may exclude certain types of teen residential programs, and thus place children at higher risk of abuse and neglect. In some States, inconsistent licensing enables programs to define themselves out of the licensing altogether. According to the GAO, in Texas a program that calls itself a residential treatment center would be required to obtain a license; but if that same program were simply called a boarding school, it would not require a license. Even when licensing exists, GAO found that there may not be minimum standards to effectively prevent child abuse and neglect.

Parents often send their children to these programs when they feel they have exhausted all their alternatives. Their children may be abusing drugs or alcohol, attempting to run away--or physically harm themselves--or otherwise acting out. Parents turn to these programs because of the promise that staff members will help their children straighten their lives out. And surely there are many cases in which programs do provide families with the help they need. In far too many cases, however, the very people entrusted with the safety, health, and welfare of these children are the ones who violate the trust in some of the most awful ways imaginable.

We have learned a great deal from the Government Accountability Office about programs' irresponsible operating practices that put kids at risk and about the deceitful marketing practices that programs use to lure parents desperate for help for their children. The Government Accountability Office also found examples of the shady network that programs sometimes relied on, such as referral service providers that claim to offer independent services to parents but that actually have close financial or personal ties to the very programs that they are ``independently recommending.''

We know that there are many programs and people around the country who are committed to helping improve the lives of young people and who do good work every day. But, unfortunately, it has become extremely difficult for parents to tell the good programs from the bad. And I would remind you again that very often these parents seek nothing but the best for their children, children who are extremely difficult to handle, who have failed in other efforts and other programs to deal with their problems. So these parents have exhausted most of their options, and then they run into some of these programs which then endanger their child even though the parent is seeking the best for their child.

The legislation before us today, H.R. 5876, would help keep children safe in residential programs and help ensure that parents have information they need to make safer choices for their kids. The legislation requires the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to establish minimum standards for private programs to enforce those standards.

With children's health and safety at risk, this Federal rule is a necessary recognition that we are dealing with an emergency and we cannot wait for the States to act. These abuses have been going on for years. States have had time to act and in many instances they have failed to do so.

Ultimately, however, States will be primarily responsible for carrying out the work of this bill. The legislation calls for States within 3 years to take up the role of setting standards and enforcing them on all programs, both public and private.

The Health and Human Services Administration and the State standards would include prohibitions on physical, sexual, and mental abuse of children. The standards would require that programs provide children with adequate food, water, and medical care. They would require that programs have plans in place to handle medical emergencies. They would also include new training requirements for program staff members, including training on how to identify and report child abuse.

The legislation requires Health and Human Services to set up a toll- free hotline for people to call to report abuse in these programs.

As you can see, Madam Chair, these are minimum requirements for the health and the safety of the children that have been placed in this care.

It also requires Health and Human Services to create a Web site with information about each program so that parents can look and see if substantiated cases of abuse have occurred at a program that they are considering for their children.

Finally, the legislation helps prevent programs from using deceptive marketing tactics to target parents. Among other things, it requires programs to disclose to parents the qualifications, roles, and responsibilities of all current staff members, and requires programs to notify parents of substantiated reports of child abuse or violations of health and safety laws.

The legislation has the strong support of the American Association of Residential Centers. One of the association board members, Dr. Christopher Bellonci, testified in support of the legislation earlier this year. He said, and I quote, ``The goal of this legislation is to ensure that children are not abused in these treatment settings, not to limit access to appropriate, regulated, and licensed residential care for children who are in need of these services. All of us working in licensed residential centers should support this goal.''

Madam Chairman, we have a responsibility to keep children safe no matter what setting they are in, and today we

are taking an important step towards finally ending the horrific abuses that have gone on far too long in residential programs for teens.

I want to thank Congresswoman McCarthy of our committee for her hard work on this legislation, and I want to thank Congressman McKeon for his effort. And we will be offering a manager's amendment later that I think will help make this bill bipartisan and helps deal with some of the concerns that people had with the legislation. So I want to thank Congressman McKeon and his staff.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from the District of Columbia (Ms. Norton).

I yield the gentlewoman 1 additional minute.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Washington (Mr. McDermott).

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

I yield 1 additional minute.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to recommit.

I am, Mr. Speaker, in its present form.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to offer a motion which will ensure that parents of children in residential treatment facilities have control over any medication being prescribed to their child. While the bill as currently written would require a parent or a legal guardian to disclose to the facility any prescription drugs that their child is currently taking, the facility would not be required to receive parental consent for the child to be issued a prescription for any new medications.

As a mother and also as a foster mother, I strongly believe in the importance of the role of the parent or the legal guardian in a child's life. This is especially true, Mr. Speaker, when it comes to matters as serious as the health and well-being of a child.

Prescription drugs, such as medication to treat psychiatric conditions, can have a major impact on the mind and the body of an adult, let alone on the young mind and the young body of a child. Such a critical decision should only be made by a qualified medical doctor with the expressed consent of a parent or legal guardian. This is only common sense, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today would allow residential treatment facilities to impose their will on children without affording those children the protection and guidance of their closest family. Whether the parent, whose intimate relationship and familiarity with their child is critical in choosing a treatment path, feels that it is in their child's best interest or not, any medication could be prescribed. For example, in its present form, this bill would allow a treatment facility to prescribe contraception to a child, who when properly informed and guided by a parent may have chosen to carry the baby to term, either raising it as their own or contacting an adoption agency, not terminating its life.

The purpose of this amendment is to protect children who are in a very vulnerable situation away from their families in a residential treatment facility where they are supposed to be receiving help for a very difficult problem. The parents and the guardians who have raised and cared for these children, who know and understand their children and their medical histories best, should know about any new or changed medications to exercise their role as primary medical decision makers for their children. The right of consent should be explicitly stated in this legislation meant to protect these vulnerable youth.

Mr. Speaker, one thing that I saw firsthand as a foster mother, there were too many children of color, minority children, who were overly prescribed for prescription drugs at a younger and younger age. This is a very disturbing issue and expressly underscores why parents or their guardians should have a say to actually give consent whether these children are given prescription drugs.

That being said, my motion, Mr. Speaker, does not infringe in any way on the role of the medical facility at a treatment facility. The expertise of the staff and the physicians would still be fully utilized in the diagnosis and, upon parental consent, the dispensing of prescription medication.

Moreover, my motion would not require parental notification for nonprescription drugs. A child in a residential treatment facility would not be hindered in obtaining any over-the-counter medication, such as aspirin. Only prescription drugs, which can have such far- reaching effects on a patient, would be applicable to the terms of this motion.

The prescription drugs often used in these facilities, especially the mental

health drugs, have very serious, and sometimes fatal side effects. This is no laughing matter, Mr. Speaker. These side effects for children, for children, Mr. Speaker, include suicide, homicide, psychosis, heart problems, tics, movement disorders, diabetes, even obesity.

Mr. Speaker, a parent is one of the most powerful influences in a child's life. I think this body agrees on that. In the case of a child in a residential treatment facility, with a very small voice and no ability to protect himself or herself, it is imperative that a parent or a legal guardian be given proper authority over the course of the treatment recommended by the treatment facility.

Mr. Speaker, today I rise to offer a motion which will ensure that parents of children in residential treatment facilities have control over any medication being prescribed to their child. While the bill, as currently written, would require a parent or legal guardian to disclose to the facility any prescription drugs their child is currently taking, the facility would not be required to receive parental consent for the child to be issued a prescription for any new medication.

This issue is very real for me. As a mother and a foster mother who has cared for children in similar situations, I strongly believe in the importance of the role of the parent or legal guardian in a child's life. This is especially true when it comes to matters as serious as the health and well-being of that child. Prescription drugs, such as medication to treat psychiatric conditions can have a major impact on the mind and body of an adult, let alone the young mind and body of a child. Our professionals deal with this on a regular basis in mental health facilities all across the nation. Especially tragic is the statistically high number of children of color who are placed on prescription psychotropic drugs, often with severe misgivings from parents or guardians. Such a critical decision should only be made by a qualified medical doctor and only after the expressed consent of a parent or legal guardian is given.

Mr. Speaker, the bill before us today would allow staff in residential treatment facilities to impose their will on children, without affording those children the protection and guidance of their closest family. Whether the parent, whose intimate relationship and familiarity with their child is critical in choosing a treatment path, feels it is in their child's best interest or not, any medication could be prescribed.

That is a historic leap in loss of parental rights over their children. Parents remain legally and financially liable for their children's mental and physical welfare yet this bill has government stripping parents of their right to consent to medical treatment via prescription drugs for their children. This bill says parents are good enough to pay the bill, but they can't be trusted to make decisions regarding their child's health. That is insulting, demeaning, and wrong.

The purpose of this amendment is to protect children who are in a very vulnerable situation away from their families in a residential treatment facility where they are supposed to be receiving help for very difficult problems. The parents and guardians that have raised and cared for these children, who know and understand their children and their medical histories best, should know about any new or changed medications to exercise their role as primary medical decision makers for their offspring. The right of consent should be explicitly stated in this legislation meant to protect these vulnerable youth.

That being said, this motion does not infringe on the role of the medical faculty at a treatment facility. The expertise of the staff and physicians would still be fully utilized in the diagnosis, and upon parental consent, the dispensing of prescription medication. Moreover, this motion would not require parental notification for non- prescription medication. A child in a residential treatment facility would not be hindered in obtaining any over-the-counter (OTC) medication such as aspirin. Only prescription drugs, which can have such far-reaching effects on the patient, would be applicable to the terms of this motion.

The prescription drugs often used in these facilities, especially the mental health drugs, have extremely serious, and sometimes fatal side effects. These include suicide, homicide, psychosis, heart problems, tics and movement disorders, diabetes and obesity.

Mr. Speaker, Members understand, a parent is one of the most powerful influences in a child's life. In the case of a child in a residential treatment facility, it is imperative that his or her parent or legal guardian be given proper authority over the course of treatment recommended by the treatment facility.

I believe this is an important addition to this bill and I urge my colleages to support the addition of this language.

Mr. Speaker, I yield to my friend from Maryland, the majority leader, to tell us about next week's schedule.

I thank the gentleman for that.

On that last topic, I believe this is the third week straight that we said we hope to have the supplemental on the floor next week. My understanding is that if that supplemental is not completed, that our troops will begin to work without pay in July and civilian employees of the military would be laid off in July. We have next week and the week after that. I really have two questions here. One is do you think there will be a bill next week? And two, are we expecting a bill that will be vetoed or a bill that will be signed?

I yield to the gentleman.

I thank the gentleman.

The bill that we talked about, the portion of the bill that would require furlough notices to go out, that portion of the bill has been here in the Congress for over a year now. I do hope we can deal with this before not only any members of the Armed Forces are asked to work without pay, but before civilian employees that run things like day care centers and things that work with families in the military are having to be notified that those efforts will stop because the Congress hasn't appropriated the money to provide those services.

I would yield.

I thank the gentleman for that.

This week we voted twice, including one vote yesterday and one vote today, on an unemployment insurance bill. I think the unemployment rate nationwide had gone up one-half of 1 percent. As the gentleman knows, a lot of our concern was that it was widely targeted, instead of States that had a significant unemployment problem. The Speaker said last week that ``America's families and workers can wait no longer, neither will the Congress. This bill will come to the floor of the House,'' and it did; and it did again.

With a 75 percent increase in the price of gasoline during this Congress, Republicans have been arguing that we need to have an energy bill that would produce more energy on the House floor. Will the Democrats work with us to schedule that legislation that allows for more energy to be produced in the country.

I would yield.

I thank my friend for that information. There are really two topics there I want to talk about just briefly. One is the refinery capacity itself. I think there's probably more reason than capacity that there's only been one permit in 30 years for refineries.

But refineries are really a separate issue from whether the oil is available or not. In fact, you could argue, we'd have more refinery use if we had more oil available.

I do know that we imported gas last year. I think importing oil is bad. I think importing gas and paying somebody to take that raw material of oil and turn it into gas is a worse idea. It's hard for me to believe that people that run refineries would be doing that if the refineries were the problem.

In terms of the leases, clearly, in the last 7 years, the amount of leased public lands has almost doubled. Most of that drilling has been for gas. In fact,

our natural gas numbers are quite a bit better than they were before that started.

Secondly, I think something like 52 percent of the exploration produces no product. It's a 10-year lease. Most of those leases are now beginning to get into the middle of that 10-year period of time. I certainly hope that we're encouraging, without doing anything that violates what we've already agreed to, that we're encouraging that to be done.

And I think, frankly, I personally think, and have for a long time, that drilling in the ANWR in the area that was set aside for drilling by President Carter and the Congress in 1980, is part of the solution. But it's only part of the solution. And wherever we have those resources, we're the only country in the world where coastal drilling is possible that doesn't allow it to happen. I think we need to revisit that. And I think the American people are at the point that they want to revisit that as well.

But this discussion is exactly the discussion we hope to have, a discussion that leads to more production and looking for the future.

My good friend said that many on our side think that drilling's the only solution. I haven't heard that. What I've heard is many on our side think it's part of an immediate, short-term solution. But in the last Congress and the Republican Congresses before that, there was lots of legislation that encouraged alternatives, renewables. We want to still do that. Most of that requires a lot of transition in the economy and will take a while.

Announcing that we were going to go vigorously after our own resources, I, at least, believe would have impact on that last topic you brought up, the futures market. If we announced we were going after substantial resources that we have, in fact, resources that are now believed to be significantly more substantial than they were 5 or 10 years ago, that would have impact on the futures market. And we should be looking at that market and see what's driving that and what we could do about it, in addition to thinking we're going to just simply regulate a worldwide market from the United States of America.

I would yield.

I thank my friend for yielding.

I was actually pleased to hear two things there. One is I heard my good friend use the word ``drilling'' in a positive sense, and that's good news.

And two is the numbers I see for the deep water drilling of natural gas indicate that there is an 18-year supply in the deep water. If you're right, and there's four times that supply on public lands that could be drilled on, I suppose that means we have almost a 100-year supply of natural gas if we just go after it. We should find out whatever it takes to go after that, and insist that that happen.

My view is both, and wherever the infrastructure is most amenable to getting that natural gas and oil into the energy system the quickest, that's where we should be drilling the quickest. If we've got a leasehold that's 500 miles away from the nearest place you can hook it up to a line, that's probably less appealing than a leasehold somewhere in the deep water or other places that's near a current way to get that gas or that oil into the system.

I do know in the 181 area that we opened in 2006 in the gulf, opened for a brief period of time, that there's one 2-acre platform there, at least I'm told there's a 2-acre platform there that's producing roughly 10 percent of all the natural gas that we're producing in the United States of America.

I do believe that these resources are greater than we thought they were 5 or 10 years ago. I think we ought to be pursuing that on all fronts.

I saw where one of our colleagues in the Senate, the senior Senator from New York, said that if we had a million barrels more of oil every day, that that would reduce pump prices by 50 cents a gallon. I'm not sure how he calculates that, but I'm prepared to accept that.

A million barrels is what we'd be getting from ANWR today if we'd started drilling there 12 years ago, or any of the other times that the Republican House sent a bill to the Senate that would have allowed that. There may be other million-barrel locations, as my friend has just suggested there were, that we should vigorously be pursuing, and we are eager to have that discussion on the House floor, see it had on the Senate floor, see something get on the President's desk that encourages American use of American resources for America's future.

I yield.

I thank my friend.

I believe for those things that look toward better solutions for the future, better conservation now, we all should be focused there. We also should be focused on using American resources, and frankly asking every question why they haven't been used. Again, I will just conclude my remarks by saying I know that these leases have been almost doubled in the last 7 years. And how long it takes to develop, some of them issued only in the last 1 or 2 years for 10 years at a time, I don't know what the planning is on that, but I am absolutely committed to the most efficient and effective use of America's resources for America's future, and I would like to see this Congress work together to get there.