Automobile Dealers Fair Competition Act of 2009

Thank you very much, Mr. Speaker, and I thank my good friend from Oregon for giving such a detailed presentation of the enormity of the work that we have generated in collaboration with this administration and what ``change'' actually means.

Sometimes the television news bites and other activities that, by the very nature of our Nation, which is so diverse, may draw upon our thinking, we don't get to the bottom line of the kinds of opportunities that we've seen over the past 8 months, 7 months, of hard work from the time that President Barack Obama was sworn in as President of the United States and Congress was sworn in for the 111th Congress. Our work is not yet finished. And we want to continue that work in dialogue with our constituents.

So I wanted to speak today some with a little lightheartedness and some

with enormous sincerity and seriousness.

I want to acknowledge the passing of the mother of the mayor of Acres Home, Willie Baker in my congressional district. I offer them my deepest sympathy. I rose to the floor yesterday to acknowledge the passing of Vermel Cook. A pioneering surgical nurse who worked with Dr. Michael E. Debakey and Dr. Michael Cooley. These are issues that members address as Federal Representatives in the people's House.

So to those families, the Cook and Baker families, I offer my deepest sympathy.

It seems then relevant to suggest that in addition to the many issues that we confront, I had the privilege of joining the Senate in having passed today by unanimous consent H.J. Res. 12, which, for many of my colleagues, 61 of them who cosponsored, many of them recognized the cultural richness of America, particularly in music which I happen to be a fan of and I believe it's so much a part of the American character whether it's country western or whether it's jazz, whether it's pop or whether it is gospel.

So H.J. Res. 12 acknowledged today along with the United States Senate that we would designate September 2009 as Gospel Music Heritage Month and it would honor the gospel music for its valuable and longstanding contributions to the culture of the United States. I hope that those who are members of various faiths throughout this Nation will take the time during their religious services to celebrate gospel musicians, gospel singers, gospel producers, gospel writers, and their own church choir or their place of faith's church choir, wherever they are practicing their faith. If there is a choir and it draws the kind of celebratory respect for their faith, I hope they will celebrate it.

So I am very pleased to have done this for a second time and to recognize the importance of the many artists and the many different influences, including country western music on gospel music. To recognize Thomas Dorsey, and Mahalia Jackson, the Stamps Quartet, the Statesmen, The Soul Stirrers, James Cleveland, Ray Hearn, Rex Humbard, the Mighty Clouds of Joy, Kirk Franklin, the late Brenda Waters and Carl Preacher and Shirley Joiner, The Winans, and Kathy Taylor, and so many others.

And then those who went on from gospel like Al Green and Elvis Presley and Aretha Franklin, Alan Jackson, Dolly Parton that had a gospel influence.

So in this place that is the people's House, we likewise attempt to be sensitive to items of joy, and I'm very proud that we will have an event in September, on September 12, at the Kennedy Center honoring gospel music heritage, and I hope my friends will do so.

But as we do that, we recognize that there are painful experiences so many of our constituents are having. So I rise today to thank my colleagues for joining me in sponsoring H.R. 3450. That is the Automobile Dealers Fair Competition Act of 2009.

We expect that because of the bankruptcies of GM and Chrysler that we are in direct line of losing some 200,000 jobs--I believe some 40,000, some 10,000 in the State of Texas--from the closing of automobile dealerships. Not only that, we realize that automobile dealerships, many of them, were the anchors of our community, the supporters of little leagues. Some of them, of course, gave us the best deals of our life. Maybe some of them didn't give you the best deal or the deal you wanted, but they are your neighbors.

Dealerships in the 18th Congressional District hire people. They're like family. They provide cars for our law enforcement, our city government. They make a difference. And by the closing, we know that they're closing small businesses. According to estimates, all termination actions combined could lead, as I said, to the loss of 200,000 direct jobs and many, many productive small businesses will be destroyed.

We also know that this termination has been in contrast to the contractual relationship called a franchise that the different dealerships had with GM and Chrysler.

So what does H.R. 3450 do? The bill deals with automobile dealers by giving them, if you will, the ability to have antitrust protection. They can now have the right to protect themselves by asking the question, Is the closing of automobile dealerships anti-competitive?

So in this bill, the bill will provide enforcement teeth to this right by giving dealers in an expedited court process to enforce the restraint of trade rights.

The bill is, in essence, giving them the right to protect themselves by going to court. This would deem decisions by auto manufacturers, specifically the Automobile Dealers Fair Competition Act of 2009, would deem decisions by auto manufacturers not to grant franchise extensions to old GM and Chrysler dealers provided they can demonstrate that they are still operating as a viable operation, that they can provide or they can show that that is an illegal restraint of trade.

In addition, the bill will provide enforcement teeth to this ride by giving dealers an expedited court process to enforce the restraint of trade rights. If new GM or Chrysler doesn't grant a replacement franchise to a growing concern within 90 days, the dealer can petition to Federal court, district court and ask the court to refer the case to a special master who will be required to hear the case and make a ruling within 90 days.

We don't want these dealerships to be closed, particularly those that are viable and are working in our community, as many have been, who have provided an economic engine to the community. It is our belief that there is empirical evidence and quantitative analysis that can be done to determine the impact of GM's mass dealer terminations to GM's market share.

If you close dealerships and you leave open Honda and Toyota and Lexus and other foreign-made car dealerships, are you impacting the competitive nature of our manufacturers and car dealers by giving them a noncompetitive edge because you have shut down competitive dealerships trying to sell American cars and you're leaving the other guys--which we welcome here in the United States; we're open to opportunity--but you let the foreign-made cars have the higher number of dealerships and therefore you deny jobs, you deny the manufacturers a forum for selling their cars. It's just not right.

So I ask my colleagues to join me in supporting H.R. 3450 to provide for the Automobile Dealers Fair Competition Act of 2009. It is H.R. 3450. We're delighted to already have a number of sponsors. It is bipartisan. We believe it can be another legislative initiative, and I am on many, to protect and provide for automobile dealers and say to the car manufacturers, our good friends in GM and Chrysler, we care about the suppliers, the car dealerships, and all of the workers that may now look to unemployment because those dealerships are closing. Those are good, good-paying jobs, and we want them back.

So, Mr. Speaker, I'm hoping that my colleagues, as they return from the August break working in their districts, will look at H.R. 3450 so we can likewise move that forward as quickly as possible.

Now, Mr. Speaker, I would like to emphasize the importance of good health care: health care for all America, health care with a public option. And for some reason, we think that this is something strange, but every single policy that has asked the question, Would you favor or oppose creating a public health insurance option to compete with private health insurance, not closing down private health insurance, you can see the increasing strong numbers: 65 percent, 83 percent, 76 percent and 72 percent.

One of the highest, I believe, indicated that this would not close anyone's private health insurance. In fact, it said: public plan option creating a new public health insurance plan that anyone can purchase. Some of the other polls say: ensuring that you can continue in your own choice.

And so I'm very proud that I support the public health insurance option that allows people to have insurance to stay where they are, but it allows all the small businesses to be able to provide themselves with insurance so they can do their business right.

What about leaving a job, getting fired and wanting to be a sole proprietor? You won't have to worry about being covered with good quality health insurance. Preexisting disease, you

won't have to be worried about being covered by good health insurance. The idea that you're not old enough for Medicare, you won't have to worry about good public insurance.

Let me give you an example--and this is happening in districts around America. In the 18th Congressional District, for example, up to 14,600 small businesses could receive tax credits to provide coverage to their employees; 5,300 seniors would avoid the doughnut hole in Medicare part D, 480 families would escape bankruptcy each year due to unaffordable health care costs; health care providers would receive payment for $49 million in uncompensated care each year. Ask your hospitals. They do not get reimbursed when they are the Good Samaritans and take people into their emergency rooms or take people who are sick. Once they're in the emergency room, they admit them.

Uncompensated care in my district alone will get $49 million and 184,000 uninsured individuals would gain access to high-quality health care.

How can we beat this? Help the small business, individuals who have ideas, want to get out and show their entrepreneurship, want to be a sole proprietor. Maybe they have two employees or 10 employees. You will get a public option. Don't let those scare tactics of you lose your insurance or it will accelerate beyond belief, because we have cost control in this bill.

In addition, don't let anyone misdirect their anguish at physician- owned hospitals. They are valuable. Do you realize that doctors come together and save hospitals from closing? They do that in Texas with Saint Joseph's Hospital. They want to do that in my district with ATH Heights Hospital. Some of my colleagues have told me about rural hospitals that are closing but doctors who care about the Hippocratic oath believe that they're there to be caregivers, and they run and they provide the saving grace by putting money into investing in those hospitals and saving them and keeping them from closing.

They, too, should be allowed to take in patients under this health care reform. And I'm fighting to make sure that that happens because they're not double-dipping. We want the quality to be high. We want to regulate it. But anyone that knows a doctor that has interest in a hospital by way of ownership, small amount kept regulated, you know that that hospital, if it's a general acute hospital, can give good care, if it's a specialty hospital, can give good care. And so I am looking forward to the opportunity to again begin this debate because I believe it is important.

Mr. Speaker, I also want to acknowledge the critics that say that the stimulus package has not worked. Well, I will tell you that Houston Metro in Houston, Texas, as a new start transportation system, is going to be eligible for stimulus dollars as we move forward. I only use the 18th Congressional District because it is right at my fingertips.

But there are jobs being created. Just alone in my district, housing and urban development, we've had $13.6 million in stimulus dollars; education, $42.5 million in stimulus dollars. And we want to continue to raise a question for our Governor to take out the $3.2 billion that is in the Rainy Day Fund in the State of Texas and utilize those stimulus dollars to put teachers back to work.

We were able to ensure that every teacher in Texas will get an $800 salary increase the day they start work when the new school year starts. Those are stimulus dollars that came through the working of the Democratic Congressional delegation of the State of Texas, $800 increase in their salary. $22 million in Social Security, and Small Business Administration, $8.5 million. That means in loans to our small businesses that are receiving monies from this important generating of jobs.

And so we have been able to fix our courthouse with $807,000. We have been able to fix our Federal building with $109 billion. We have been able to work, if you will, with the Catholic Charities emergency food and shelter, $24,000. We have been able to reach the Community of the Streets Outreach with $25,000. We have been working with new Kid Care emergency food and shelter. They have received dollars. Northwest Assistance Ministries has received dollars.

This is one district, but multiply it for the needs across your community. We have been able to keep nonprofit workers to help those people who have been unemployed. I think that is a far cry. Cleme Manor Apartments, new construction, substantial rehabilitation. Garden City Apartments, new construction, substantial rehabilitation.

Mr. Speaker, we are putting people to work. They are working on the construction and rehab of those apartments where individuals live. They are giving individuals a cleaner, safer, better quality of life by improving their apartments.

What I would ask my colleagues to do and those who may be listening, go to your local city halls. It's public knowledge. Ask them to print out for you a list of the stimulus dollars that have already come. More are going to come. Those will be grant dollars. It means that any of the nonprofits in your States or cities or counties can apply for dollars that will put people to work.

Right now, we have the ability to utilize some $700 million in what we call ``green'' jobs. Of course, you can't see it overnight. You couldn't see it in March. You couldn't see it possibly in February. Maybe you didn't see it in April or May because, yes, processing is important, documenting your dollars, where are your tax dollars going, making sure we have the right report is correct.

In Houston, I am very proud to have worked on the stimulus dollar legislation providing language to ensure that minority- and women-owned and small businesses would be recipients of those dollars in the appropriate manner so that we don't leave out small businesses who would have the ability to legitimately be receiving stimulus dollars through a government process and work that they would be doing.

And construction dollars for all of the construction workers out there. Rehabilitation is a right way to work. I'm glad that the Houston Heights Tower received some $95,000--those are where a lot of my senior citizens live--for new construction and rehabilitation. I remember going to the Heights Tower during Hurricane Ike.

And so it is important to refute some of the negative commentary that the stimulus dollars don't work. They do. Settegast Heights, again, $877,000 have gone to my city of Houston in the 18th Congressional District alone; new construction, substantial rehabilitation. People will have a better quality of life.

Wesley Square Apartments, $508,000, new construction, substantial rehabilitation. Some of the homeless persons who have come upon hard times, many of them homeless veterans, will be able to have a better quality of life because stimulus dollars were utilized.

So, Mr. Speaker, I believe that we have come to the end of a portion of the 111th Congress, and I am very proud that we passed an SCHIP bill that enrolled more children in health care, that we increased the minimum wage, that we provided for parity for women in working, that their income or their salary is competitive with men, that, as well, we have begun to stand down in Iraq. And our Defense Appropriation bill speaks to helping move the defense of Iraq to the Iraqi National Forces.

I offer my deepest sadness and reflection on those lives that have been lost, our soldiers on the front line, those that are now being lost in Afghanistan, and we will work hard to stand down there to ensure that the country of Afghanistan can stand up. But we've been working hard to ensure that that happens.

I've been working hard to help the people of Pakistan. We passed a Pakistan relief bill, in essence, out of Foreign Affairs so that they can stand up, so they can help with social programs, they can help economically, that we can help those who are in the camps because of the violence that was perpetrated, that we can show the respect for the soldiers in Afghanistan, their own soldiers in Afghanistan, Afghanis and the Pakistanis, who have lost soldiers themselves fighting terrorism.

We passed H.R. 2200, the bill I authored, helping to secure transportation--airports, trains, busses--to emphasize more training for flight attendants, to provide more resources for the Transportation Security Administration, to ensure that America is safe.

And so this House has been busy. And as we go home to our districts, we will not run away from the idea of good health plans. Because, my friends, I don't know what my friends on the other side of the aisle have, a bunch of question marks about the health plan that my friends on the other side of the aisle have offered.

I want them to join us. I can articulate what we have done. I realize that we've made great strides. I know that the people want, if you will, good health care.

And so as I close, I want to thank the Speaker. And I just want to leave you with this forceful message: We're going to get the job done. We're going to get health care for all Americans, and the stimulus is going to work for you. And celebrate Gospel Music Heritage Month in September as we help our automobile dealers return to their jobs and to retain their jobs. You know we've been working.