Tom Lantos Pulmonary Hypertension Research and Education Act of 2008

Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my good friend, Mr. Cardoza, the gentleman from California, for the time; and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, on the opening day of this Congress, the distinguished chairwoman of the Rules Committee, Ms. Slaughter, came to the floor and said that the new majority would, `` . . . begin to return this Chamber to its rightful place as the home of democracy and deliberation in our great Nation.'' That pledge echoed a document by Speaker Pelosi titled A New Direction For America. That document said, ``bills should generally come to the floor under a procedure that allows open, full, and fair debate.''

Now as we approach the closing hours of the 110th Congress, I think it is appropriate for us to take a look at whether the majority has actually lived up to those promises.

Let us begin with closed rules. There really can be few, if any, parliamentary procedures that are more offensive to the essential spirit of democracy, the spirit of democracy, than a closed rule. A closed rule shuts off, blocks Members from both sides of the aisle from offering any amendments to legislation that is considered on the floor. As I said, no matter what their party affiliation, if and when Congress operates under a closed rule, all Members are shut out from the legislative process on the floor.

Even though the majority promised a more open Congress, as I referred to in the beginning of my remarks, they silenced the vote of every Member and thus all of every Member's constituents a record 63 times this Congress. Sixty-three times. No other Congress in the history of the Republic has ever brought forth so many closed rules. No other Congress in the history of the Republic has brought so many pieces of legislation to the floor under that legislative framework that prohibits every Member of this House from offering amendments to the legislation.

The consistent use of closed rules by the majority constitutes an affront to the democratic spirit as well as to their own promises. But that is not the only way that they have failed to live up to their promises. They have also systematically bypassed what is known as the conference process, effectively shutting out the minority from having a say on legislation that makes its way to the President's desk.

Madam Speaker, as you know, the conference process is the process by which the House and Senate work out differences, resolve their differences and achieve a final legislative product that is exact to be passed by the House and the Senate and sent to the President.

Now the majority has also used a technique known as ``ping-pong'' to avoid that conference process. They have used that technique in order to subvert the rights of the minority to offer motions to recommit and amendments. For comparison, in the 108th Congress and 109th Congress-- those Congresses combined--that technique known as ping-ponging was used three times during the 108th Congress and 109th Congress.

But that is not all. The majority has also considered 45 bills outside the regular order. They also blocked minority substitute amendments, allowing only 10 minority substitute amendments even though they promised a procedure that, and again I remind the majority of its own words, they promised that they would ``grant the minority the right to offer its alternatives, including a substitute.''

So here we are today with a rule that a distinguished senior member of the majority on the Rules Committee said, and I quote, is `` . . . outside the normal parameters of the way that the House should conduct its business . . . it effectively curtails our rights and responsibilities as serious legislators.''

Prior to becoming Speaker, Ms. Pelosi pledged, and I quote, ``to conduct our work with civility and bipartisanship and to act in partnership, not partisanship, with the President and the Republicans in Congress.''

Obviously, the record has been another story.

Now with regard to what the majority is doing today, the majority is bringing forth 44 bills for consideration under what is known as suspension of the rules. It's a process by which usually noncontroversial bills, as my friend described them, bills that generally have bipartisan support because they require two-thirds of the House in order to pass, under the rule being brought forth today, we will be authorizing under this rule 44 bills for consideration under suspension of the rules. At least they're telling us what the 44 bills are. That's why it took some time for the Clerk to read them, because there are 44 bills to read the titles. So at least I think the majority should be commended for telling us what the 44 bills are.

Now, unfortunately, we're informed that the Rules Committee is meeting at this time, as we speak, to pass a rule to authorize more suspensions, but not telling us what they are; in other words, a blanket authority. So, obviously everything has to be put in perspective.

Compared to what the Rules Committee is doing now for the rest of the session, this is a commendable rule because at least it is informing us and the American people what we will be considering. At least the titles have been brought forth. So that is something that, when we consider how the majority has acted procedurally in this Congress, we have to be grateful that we're being informed at least what bills are being authorized for consideration under the rule today.

Madam Speaker, as we look back at this 110th Congress that is nearing its end, I think it would be fair to say that when one considers the promises for openness and fairness and transparency made by the majority at the beginning of this Congress and in their campaign before this Congress began, when one compares that with their record of having broken all precedent in terms of the number, the number, having broken the record in terms of the number of pieces of legislation brought to this floor authorizing no amendments, in other words, closed rules, there is an extraordinary difference between the promise and the reality by our friends on the other side of the aisle.

I reserve the balance of my time.

No, I would inform my friend that we have no other speakers. So at this time I yield back the balance of my time.

Let me first thank Mr. Deal for his remarkable leadership in shepherding this bill to the floor. Without him championing it through the Energy and Commerce Committee along with Mrs. Capps, this simply would not be happening. I want to thank Mr. Deal for his leadership on behalf of many, many, many patients.

I would also like to take a brief moment to reflect on the loss of my friend and one of pulmonary hypertension's

most important voices in Congress, Tom Lantos. I know I speak for each one of us here when I say that we have dearly missed Tom's passion for his work and for the House of Representatives.

As chairman of the House Foreign Relations Committee, Tom was regularly confronting some of the most pressing challenges facing our country in the world today. Nevertheless, it was his work on PH that he routinely cited the most important thing he was doing in Congress.

As many of us know, Tom's granddaughter, Charity, was diagnosed with pulmonary hypertension several years ago. Ever since he had been a tireless advocates on behalf of PH patients and, in my opinion, a large part of why we have made so much progress over the last decade.

Like Tom, my involvement with PH is very personal. It is now more than a decade since the daughter of my very good friend, Jack Stibbs, was diagnosed with PH. Jack's daughter, Emily, was only 5 when her parents noticed at a community parade that she was struggling to bicycle fast enough to keep up with her friends. She always seemed out of breath and struggled to climb stairs. Doctors eventually diagnosed her with pulmonary hypertension.

PH is a serious and often-fatal condition where the blood pressure in the lungs rises to dangerously high levels. In PH patients, the walls of the arteries that take blood from the right side of the heart to the lungs, thicken and constrict. As a result, the right side of the heart has to pump harder and harder to move blood into the lungs, causing it to enlarge and ultimately fail.

PH can occur without a known cause or be secondary to other conditions, such as scleroderma, lupus, HIV, sickle cell, and liver disease. Patients develop symptoms that include shortness of breath, fatigue, chest pain, dizziness and fainting.

Unfortunately, these symptoms are frequently misdiagnosed, leaving patients with the false impression that they have a minor pulmonary or cardiovascular condition. By the time many patients receive an accurate diagnosis, the disease has progressed to a late stage, making it impossible to receive a necessary heart or lung transplant.

When Emily Stibbs was first diagnosed in 1977, the average survival rate for PH patients was just 2\1/2\ years. There was only one FDA- approved therapy at the time, and the best that doctors could do was to make patients comfortable as their condition deteriorated. To make matters worse, there is very little research on PH being supported by the National Institutes of Health.

Fortunately we have come a very long way in a relatively short period of time. There are now six FDA-approved therapies for PH with many, many more in the pipeline. People are living longer with a better quality of life than ever before. Our Federal health care agencies, including the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Food and Drug Administration are actively and aggressively engaged in the fight against PH.

Those of us here on Capitol Hill are more aware of this disease than ever before. The 247 Representatives who cosponsored our PH bill in the last Congress are testament to that fact. But there is still more work that can and must be done as pulmonary hypertension afflicts over 100,000 Americans and continues to strike women of child-bearing age in growing numbers.

Representative Lois Capps has joined me in introducing the bill before us today, the Tom Lantos Pulmonary Hypertension Research and Education Act. This bill builds on what we have already accomplished and further emphasizes the need for more research, more training and more awareness.

Specifically, it urges the NIH to aggressively pursue collaborative research into better treatments and provides funding to increase physician and public awareness of the disease to ensure early and accurate diagnoses. I am proud of what we have done together and believe that a cure for PH is just around the corner, so long as we continue to keep the National Institutes of Health and medical community focused.

On behalf of pulmonary hypertension patients everywhere, I would like to thank Representative Lois Capps for her leadership of this bill, Energy and Commerce Chairman Dingell, Ranking Member Joe Barton, Health Subcommittee Chairman Frank Pallone, and, as I mentioned before, my dear friend, Nathan Deal, again, whose leadership was remarkable.

I conclude with this, over the last 10 years, we have decided that if I did nothing else in Congress, I would find a cure for this incurable disease.

I appreciate so much the Pulmonary Hypertension Association, which has raised, over the years, $10 million for research and education; the chairman of the association, Carl Hicks; its great president, Rino Aldrighetti; Katie Kroner and Gavin Lindberg, who have spent many years advocating on behalf of our patients in the association; Dr. Elizabeth Nabel, director of the National Heart, Lung and Blood Institute, who helped start the first Centers of Excellence for PH at the National Institutes of Health; and finally the staff of the Energy and Commerce Committee, including Jessica McNiece, Aarti Shaw, Brandon Clark, and Ryan Long.

It takes a collaborative effort to tackle a disease like this. We are making progress, and I am eternally grateful for their support.

Madam Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 1491 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 may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on House Resolution 1491.

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

Madam Speaker, H. Res. 1491 authorizes the Speaker to entertain motions that the House suspend the rules at any time on the legislative day of Thursday, September 25, 2008, on 44 separate measures. This rule is necessary because under clause 1(a) of rule XV, the Speaker may entertain motions to suspend the rules only on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday of each week. In order for suspensions to be considered on other days, the Rules Committee must authorize consideration of these motions.

This is not unusual. In fact, in the 109th Congress, my friends on the other side of the aisle reported at least six rules that provided for additional suspension days. This bill limits the suspension of rules only to those measures listed in the rule itself so Members on both sides of the aisle are aware of exactly what bills may be considered under this suspension of the rules.

This is standard procedure at the end of the legislative session and includes both House bills that we will send to the Senate for consideration and Senate-passed bills that are ready to become law once they pass the House.

I would remind my colleagues on both sides of the aisle that bills considered under suspension of the rules must receive strong bipartisan support in order to pass the House.

I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting this rule which will simply help us move important, noncontroversial legislation before we adjourn that is important to our constituents and

that will receive overwhelmingly bipartisan support and that will hopefully become law.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I would like to inquire of the gentleman from Florida if he has any additional speakers. I am the last speaker on my side.

Madam Speaker, my friend from Florida has raised several issues with regard to the procedures of the House for the last 2 years. The gentleman is correct that there have been a number of closed rules this year. But I would like to just say, in response to that, that we have had to try and manage this House with a very obstinate Republican minority in the Senate.

There has been a record number of filibusters that have been put forward this year to try and stop everything that we have tried to accomplish in this body. In fact, there has been an absolute stonewalling on the number of conference committees, breaking down the bipartisan process, breaking down the comity that engages both Houses, so that we can get something done for the American people. By refusing to go to conference, this has gummed up the arteries of this body, and it, frankly, is the Republican minority in the other body that has really made this a very difficult House and institution to manage.

Madam Speaker, I would also say that the gentleman mentioned that this is--well, first of all, he acknowledged that we are telling everyone today the 44 bills that we are, in fact, bringing forward in this rule. Six times the gentleman's party, in the last Congress, did not tell us what they were bringing forward in a rule. And I can cite the dates. We have the information.

The reality is that this is not an uncommon practice at the end of the session. We would like to, as we are doing in this rule, do it every time, but sometimes it's possible at the end of the session we're simply running out of time.

So, Madam Speaker, as I said, this is a standard procedure at the end of the legislative session that will simply

help us move important, noncontroversial legislation before we adjourn that will receive overwhelming bipartisan support.

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

I yield back the balance of my time, and I move the previous question on the resolution.

The previous question was ordered.

Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 6568) to direct the Secretary of Health and Human Services to encourage research and carry out an educational campaign with respect to pulmonary hypertension, and for other purposes, as amended.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the bill under consideration.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 6568, the Tom Lantos Pulmonary Hypertension Research and Education Act of 2008, as introduced by representative Kevin Brady and my good friend and the Health Subcommittee's vice chair, Lois Capps.

Pulmonary hypertension is a rare lung disorder in which the blood pressure in the pulmonary artery rises far above normal levels, usually with no apparent reason. Symptoms include chronic fatigue, shortness of breath, chest pains, palpitations, and fainting. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, in 2002 there were 15,668 deaths and 260,000 hospital visits among persons with pulmonary hypertension.

The number of hospitalizations related to pulmonary hypertension has been increasing in recent years, especially among women. This measure would help improve current research efforts on pulmonary hypertension, as well as increased public awareness.

I want to thank my colleagues, Mr. Brady and Mrs. Capps for their work on this legislation.

I also want to recognize my colleague, Mr. Lantos, who passed away earlier this year. Passage of today's bill is a fitting tribute to Representative Lantos and his work in raising awareness about pulmonary hypertension and thousands of patients who suffer from it.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to offer their support for this very important bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the sponsor of the legislation, the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps).

Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time. I

would ask that everyone support this legislation, not only because of the issue of pulmonary hypertension and research and the need for it, but also as a tribute to Representative Lantos.

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

I thank the chairman of our Health subcommittee for recognizing me.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 6568, for which I am proud to be the lead Democratic sponsor.

I want to commend Congressman Kevin Brady for his tireless work on behalf of pulmonary hypertension awareness over the last several years. As the name of this legislation indicates, our dear friend and former colleague, Tom Lantos, was a champion of working against this disease because of a very personal connection, his lovely granddaughter, Charity.

I am so proud that we could help the Lantos family fulfill their goal of seeing this bill acted on during the 110th Congress. I am sure that many of us will remember forever the day that Charity testified, that was in December of 2005.

She testified before the Energy and Commerce Committee. She so eloquently relayed to us the challenges of getting properly diagnosed and then adjusting to her daily complex routine in order to cope with her illness at the same time she pursued her musical career.

Pulmonary hypertension is a very rare disease, which is marked by increased blood pressure in the pulmonary artery, as has been described. There are very few treatments available, and this legislation is aimed at improving research and awareness about the disease so that we can find more effective treatments and, one day, a cure.

I want to thank the Energy and Commerce majority and minority staff for working hard to bring this bill up today, for the ranking member of the minority Health committee for insisting that it come before us today, and for the lead sponsor, again, Kevin Brady, for his efforts on behalf of the pulmonary hypertension community.

Of course, we thank the Lantos family for their advocacy on behalf of pulmonary hypertension, and the efforts to ensure this bill's passage in Tom Lantos' memory.