Caregivers Expansion and Improvement Act of 2013

Mr. Speaker, by direction of the Committee on Rules, I call up House Resolution 403 and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, for the purpose of debate only, I yield 30 minutes to my friend from Florida (Mr. Hastings), pending which I yield myself such time as I may consume. During consideration of this resolution, all time yielded is for the purpose of debate only.

General Leave

Mr. Speaker, I also ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks.

Mr. Speaker, I think back to a time when I was a teenager and I came into the gallery, and I am convinced that I came in during a rule because the reading clerk was standing there, reading line after line after line of material I didn't understand at all, and I thought, Why in the world is line by line by line the legislation being read? Haven't the Members already looked at that legislation? Haven't they already had time to study it?

What I know now, Mr. Speaker, 3 years with the voting card of the people of the Seventh District of Georgia, is that the rule is the only piece of legislation in this entire body that has to be read word for word here on the floor of the House.

My colleague from Florida and I spend a lot of hours up there in the Rules Committee sorting those things out, but the rules matter. The process matters.

I will be able to confess to you, Mr. Speaker--and I think sometimes we get that process done a little better, sometimes we get that process not done quite so well, but today we have a rule that brings two very important pieces of legislation to the floor. This structured rule provides for H.R. 982, which is the Furthering Asbestos Claim Transparency Act, the FACT Act; and it brings a closed rule for H.R. 2655, the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act of 2013.

I want to say, Mr. Speaker, I was just talking with a group about what the Rules Committee does, and I have talked about the importance of an open process and how closed rules don't give folks as much opportunity to express their views on the floor.

It is going to be a closed rule on the Lawsuit Abuse Reduction Act, H.R. 2655, because for 11 days, Mr. Speaker, the Rules Committee solicited amendments from the entire body. It asked anyone who had any ideas about how to improve this legislation to submit those amendments so that we could consider them in the Rules Committee, and over that period of 11 days, Mr. Speaker, not one Member of this body offered any ideas about how to improve this bill. We would have liked to have made amendments in order for this bill, but none were submitted. So while we say this is a closed rule on H.R. 2655, it is only because no amendments were submitted to improve upon it.

Now on H.R. 982, the FACT Act, Mr. Speaker, we had five amendments submitted, all Democrat amendments. One was withdrawn. So there were only four that were in order for our meeting last night. One was confessed to actually just try to eliminate the effectiveness of the bill altogether. So we excluded that one because if folks don't like the bill, they can just vote ``no.'' They don't have to destroy the bill from within; they can just vote ``no'' on final passage. But all of the other amendments that were submitted we made in order. Now these are not amendments that I intend to support on the floor, Mr. Speaker, but I do think it is important that people's voices be heard.

So, again, three amendments are made in order. That is 75 percent of all the amendments that were submitted, and they are all amendments offered by my friends on the Democratic side of the aisle. The Rules Committee thought it was important to make those amendments in order.

Now we will talk a lot, Mr. Speaker, in the debate that comes after the rule about the content of these bills. One deals with frivolous litigation and whether or not judges will be required to allow folks who had to defend against frivolous lawsuits to recover the costs of those suits.

Today, Mr. Speaker, if someone files a frivolous lawsuit against you, you can have that lawsuit tossed out, but you have to go back to the court a second time to recover all of the costs that it took you to have the frivolous lawsuit tossed out. It is a tremendous burden on small businesses in our Nation. This bill seeks to solve that.

The FACT Act, our asbestos litigation act, aims to provide some transparency to the asbestos trust funds. I don't know if you are familiar, Mr. Speaker, but when it was discovered all of the health damage done by asbestos, the lawsuits began immediately and would have driven every one of those companies that either used asbestos or produced asbestos into bankruptcy, leaving no money at all for victims who had health problems that they then sought compensation for.

So federally we created, within Federal bankruptcy courts, these asbestos trust funds that allowed these companies, these manufacturers of asbestos, these folks who utilized processes that included asbestos, to deposit money into a trust fund and not go out of business but to provide certainty that victims would be able to recover from those funds in the future.

There is some concern, Mr. Speaker, that the process, as it exists today, does not allow for folks to see who is getting those dollars and whether or not the victims who have the most urgent needs are receiving those dollars first. Our great concern, Mr. Speaker, is that when those trust funds are depleted, they are gone forever. As you know, asbestos- related illnesses often don't present themselves for years down the road, so we have a stewardship obligation to these trust funds to keep them protected for future claimants.

This bill requires a degree of transparency, a quarterly report from the trustees of these trust funds to see who is making claims on these funds, who is receiving claims out of these funds, again, just so we can be good stewards of those trust funds and ensure they are available for future years.

I don't sit on the Judiciary Committee, Mr. Speaker, but I heard from the ranking member of the Constitution Subcommittee last night. I heard from the chairman of the full committee last night in the Rules Committee as we held a hearing on both of these bills. I am glad that we are able to bring them to the floor today, Mr. Speaker. Two bills, a structured rule. One rule is closed because no amendments were provided. The other bill is receiving 75 percent of all of the amendments that were submitted. Just one amendment was excluded by that rule.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I say to my friend that I absolutely share his passion for privacy protection. In fact, I had to leave a hearing we were having in the Oversight and Government Reform Committee today, Mr. Speaker, where we were looking at the ObamaCare Web site and talking to the chief information officers and the chief technology officers about how this Web site had gone live without having been fully vetted for security protections; talking about how, even as we sit here today, we have not fully run through those security processes.

I share the gentleman's concern. The gentleman is an attorney as well. I remember when I was in law school and they gave you access to the LexisNexis database when you showed up to law school. You could dial up anybody in the country. It is giving you a credit report and showing you Social Security numbers.

We really do have to have a national conversation, Mr. Speaker, about where we are headed. Those last four digits that were once my private knowledge are out there all over the Internet today. My birthday is broadcast everywhere on the Internet. My mother's maiden name is out there. All of those things that folks used to ask me to protect me have now become part of the public domain. And what the gentleman says about a need to focus on that and protect folks is absolutely right, and we absolutely need to do that.

There was only one amendment last night that was offered to deal with privacy. It was going to give a unique identifier to folks, instead of listing names, so that we could have the transparency to see if folks were trying to game the system and take opportunities away from future victims. That amendment was withdrawn. We didn't have an opportunity to talk about that.

But my great hope is that this bill will pass the House today and that we will be able to have a similar bill come out of the Senate. If regular order has a chance to prevail on Capitol Hill, conference committees will give us another chance to take a bite at that apple.

I think the gentleman brings up very real concerns; and, again, we will have an opportunity to talk about those today.

The gentleman says, Mr. Speaker, there are some bills that are just so bad, nobody wants to fix them. I want to say to the gentleman that I am sympathetic to that sentiment. There are a few that I could rattle off right now that are so bad, I wonder if it is even possible to fix them.

But the bill the gentleman was talking about was the bill to eliminate frivolous lawsuits, Mr. Speaker. When we had these penalties in place back for 10 years between 1983 and 1993, more than 70 percent of judges said that they utilized this procedure and that they awarded damages in frivolous lawsuits. Seventy percent of judges, Mr. Speaker, utilize this provision that we are trying to bring back into being to punish filers of frivolous lawsuits.

This is not a bill for Big Business, Mr. Speaker. This is a bill that has been key voted by the National Federation of Independent Businesses. If you know NFIB--and I know most of my colleagues do--this is the trade association that represents the mom-and-pop shops, Mr. Speaker. These aren't the big, working-out-of-a-glass-building-downtown folks that you think are out to get the consumer. These are our friends and neighbors. These are folks who are employing our sons and daughters. These are folks who create most of the jobs in this country.

And they don't key vote a lot of bills, Mr. Speaker. You can go to their Web site--NFIB--and see the number of bills that they key vote. But they have picked this one out.

My colleague from Florida says that some people believe it is so bad that it can't be fixed. They have heard from lawyer association, after lawyer association, after lawyer association which says it doesn't like it, but we are hearing from the mom-and-pop shops which can't defend against it.

Understand, Mr. Speaker, that today, if a frivolous lawsuit is filed against you--and I don't mean ``frivolous'' because I think it is silly. There are lots of those out there. That is going to be a much higher number. I mean ``frivolous'' because the judge in the case says it has absolutely no merit on either the facts or the law. When the judge says it has no merit whatsoever, but you have had to pay to defend yourself against it, this bill says the fellow who filed it ought to make you whole.

Punitive damages are something we often hear about from the trial lawyer bar. This bill doesn't have punitive damages. This bill doesn't say, if you try to bankrupt the mom-and-pop company that is down the street from me, we are going to punish you. I think probably it should, but they didn't want to go that far. They said, if you are trying to destroy, with a frivolous lawsuit, the mom-and-pop company down the street, you have to make it whole. If a judge decides that your case has no merit--not a possibly of merit, but no merit--on either the facts or the law, the poor small business owner who is being harassed by that lawsuit should at least have the chance to be made whole at the end of that process. The National Federation of Independent Business-- small mom-and-pop shops--is who cares about this legislation.

Again, folks are going to vote ``yes,'' and folks are going to vote ``no,'' but I

think it is important that we say, Mr. Speaker, that this is the purview, those things that are important. The gentleman from Florida says, hey, there are more important things we could be working on. I happen to agree with him. There really are important things that we need to have on the floor of this House, but if you are the small business owner who is about to lose your entire lifetime of work because someone has filed a frivolous lawsuit against you, I promise you there is no more important bill in your life than the one that is before us today.

I also have to say, Mr. Speaker, to my friend who talks about sequester that I think that is an important thing. I happen to be the Rules Committee designee to the Budget Committee, and I happen to be the chairman of the Republican Study Committee Budget and Spending Task Force. In fact, we are having a meeting with Maya MacGuineas on the Fix the Debt campaign next Monday afternoon to talk about what those options are for dealing with long-term problems. The Budget Committee right now is in conference with the Senate, trying to find a way to restore funding to discretionary spending programs that we all believe have been ham-handedly reduced. Instead, they are trying to find savings on which we can agree on those long-term mandatory spending programs that rarely, Mr. Speaker, have an opportunity to see aggressive oversight, to see the things that can improve them, to see the things that can preserve their long-term fiscal viability.

I would say, finally, Mr. Speaker, to my friend from Florida that, as the designee to the Budget Committee and as the chairman of the Budget and Spending Task Force, I don't believe it is the failure to raise the debt ceiling that threatens America's credit rating. I think it is out- of-control spending that threatens America's credit rating. It only takes a stroke of a pen here for us to raise the credit limit to infinity, but I promise you that that is not in the best interests of the American economy.

We all know we have spending challenges in this country. We all know that we have made promises to veterans, to seniors, to the infirm, to the poor that we don't have the money to keep. I think that is immoral. If you don't want to help somebody, then say you don't want to help somebody, but do not promise someone that you will be there for him in his time of need and pull the rug out from under him when he needs the promise to be fulfilled the most. We can do better. This body has done better.

In 1983, Republicans and Democrats came together and extended the fiscal lifetime of Social Security by not doing things that hurt seniors in that day but by doing things that raised the retirement age for me--I was 13 at the time--from 65 to 67. That is a pretty modest step that made a big impact in the life of the Social Security trust fund.

There are big issues that we need to discuss here on the floor. I hope we will bring those issues to the floor. Our committees in the House moved things in a responsible way, step by step, throughout the summer. We could use a little partnership from the other side of the Hill, but I hope we will focus on what we have before us here today, Mr. Speaker--an opportunity to make a difference for future victims who are applying to the trust fund and an opportunity to make a difference today for small businesses which are being victimized by frivolous litigation.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say to my colleague that I very much appreciate her concern about the family members of veterans.

So often, we craft a one-size-fits-all solution in this body, and if you want to care for your loved one at home, there is very little help for you. Now, if you want to institutionalize your loved one--if you want to dump your loved one off on the State--then we have a program for you, but if you want to nurture your loved one but you just need a little help, if you want to keep your loved one by your side but you just can't do it alone, there are very few opportunities that you have within our Federal system today. One exception to that is the PACE program, which was championed by Bob Dole back in the day, that allows you to bridge some of the different Federal programs that are available to you and to utilize those within your home, within your family, rather than having to institutionalize your loved one.

I don't think there is a man or a woman in this body, Mr. Speaker, who does not both have a tremendous amount of respect and admiration for our veterans but who also feels a debt of service to our veterans. I will point out that we always talk about the hyperpartisan U.S. House of Representatives. We moved our Veterans Affairs' spending bill in this House back on June 4. On June 4, we passed it in this House with only four Members voting ``no.'' Talk about things that bring you together, Mr. Speaker, as opposed to divide you. That is the kind of commitment that this institution has to our veterans.

I can't tell you why we haven't been able to get that signed into law. I know the Senate has not yet acted on that bill. I think it would be something that would bring them together, too, and I would recommend that to them, but of the 435 Members of this body, only four Members voted ``no'' on our bill to try to fulfill that commitment in order to make sure our veterans--our returning men and women--have the kinds of resources that not just they deserve but that we have committed to them.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I am prepared to close.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume to say to this body there are actually more that my friend from Florida and I agree on than what we disagree on. I might not say that at a townhall meeting back home, but I will say that to you here, because at its core we all share a vision of what this Nation can be, what this Nation should be; but we do get mired in the rhetoric.

It is interesting that we have a bill today that those folks who represent mom-and-pop businesses say is so important to them they are going to make sure that every single Member of this House knows that they are keeping score on this and they want a ``yes'' vote on that legislation. Yet we have other bills here that the trial lawyers are saying are so important to them that they are going to write letter after letter after letter saying this is not in the best interest of the country, we should move in a different direction.

I will tell you, those are exactly the kinds of bills that we ought to be working on. Now, are there bigger-picture bills out there? Absolutely there are. I would like to see a bill that solves Social Security forever, where we end this business about Social Security is going to go bankrupt, and once and for all we solve that issue so no senior is ever concerned about that again.

We don't have that bill on the floor today. We have an opportunity to stop frivolous lawsuits.

I would like to see a bill on the floor that balances the Federal budget. I am old fashioned that way, Mr. Speaker. I think if you want to spend it, you ought to raise it. If you don't want to raise it, then don't spend it.

But we don't have that bill on the floor today. We have a bill to make sure that trust funds intended to protect victims of a horrible, horrible perpetration by industry have an opportunity to collect what little money there is left from those businesses that perpetrated those harms. I think we should support that bill today.

Mr. Speaker, one step at a time we really can make a difference. I have been reading with great dismay that some of the colleagues that I was elected with 3 years ago have decided they

are not going to run for reelection. They have been here 3 years, and they have found that while they came here to make America a better place, while they came here to serve the men and women back home, while they came here to make sure their children grew up with the same freedoms and opportunities that they grew up with, they have decided that it might not be happening.

We can and we must do better. In fact, we had a committee hearing last night. My colleague from Florida (Mr. Webster) said, I think ``comprehensive'' ought to be a dirty word. Comprehensive ought to be a dirty word, because when I hear ``comprehensive,'' Mr. Speaker, what I hear is we are throwing everything in, and the kitchen sink, and I want you to pass all or nothing on the House floor.

It doesn't have to be that way. I promise you if you put together a 2,000-page bill, Mr. Speaker, there are going to be parts of it that my constituency does not believe are in the best interest of America. But if we pass bills 10 pages at a time, 20 pages at a time, maybe even 30 pages at a time, Mr. Speaker, if we move one idea at a time, we get a ``yes'' or ``no'' vote from both sides of the aisle, we send it to the Senate, we pass it in the Senate, and the President puts a signature on it, we can make a difference.

I believe that that momentum matters. I hope we get a ``yes'' vote on the rule. I hope we get a ``yes'' vote on these underlying bills. I hope we get bills coming out of the farm bill conference. I hope we get bills coming out of the budget conference. I hope we get bills coming out of the Water Resources and Reform Development Act conference. I hope we move these things before we begin to build that momentum.

We are at a stumbling place, Mr. Speaker. There is an impediment in our way. I read some White House sources this week that said they recognize that we have not come through on the promise of ``if you like your insurance, you can keep it.'' They were looking for solutions, but they weren't going to come to Congress to look for solutions. They were going to look for administrative solutions, and they were going to try to fix it on their own.

As we have heard on this floor many times, the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land; ObamaCare is the law of the land. An administrative branch shouldn't just be able to unilaterally change the law of the land. The Constitution gives that responsibility to us. We have got to step up and take responsibility for those things that the Constitution invests in us, and article III courts are one of those things. We are taking that responsibility up today.

Mr. Speaker, we have an opportunity not to be Republicans and Democrats, but to be representatives of Americans in the greatest body in this entire land, the closest to the American people--the U.S. House of Representatives. We have a chance to announce our position, the House position, and move that to the Senate and then, lo and bold, we have an opportunity to work with the Senate not to adopt a Republican position or a Democrat position, but a congressional opinion, an article I constitutional opinion that we then march down Pennsylvania Avenue and say to the Executive, be he or she a Republican or a Democrat, this is what the people have to say; we need your signature on that. They can say ``yes'' or ``no.''

We have set up these roadblocks, Mr. Speaker, where it is not House and Senate; it is Republican and Democrat. It does not serve this institution well. It does not serve America well.

I hope we are going to have bipartisan votes on these two bills today, Mr. Speaker. We are exercising a constitutional responsibility to direct the courts. We can vote ``yes,'' we can vote ``no,'' but it is not something that is peripheral to what we are about. It is something that is essential to the responsibilities that the Constitution has placed with us.

I promise my colleagues this institution will be a better institution if we pull out that rule book called the United States Constitution more often and start with those priorities that it has invested in us, not the priorities that some interest group has invested in us, not the priorities that the news media has invested in us, not the priorities that a Republican Party or a Democratic Party have invested in us, but the priorities the United States Constitution invests in us, we will restore the faith of the American people in this institution.

These two bills do that, Mr. Speaker. I encourage a strong ``yes'' vote on the rule that has made in order all of the amendments that were offered, save one. Let this body work its will. Support this rule. Support the underlying bill. Vote your conscience on the amendments to make the bills better if you want to, but let's get our constitutional responsibilities done.

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

I thank my good friend from Georgia for yielding me the customary 30 minutes, and I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I listened to the gentleman, and he was very clear about, one, the process and, two, the basic substance of both measures that are on the floor today. To a relative degree, I agree with much of what he has said. I know that my friend from Georgia is an advocate of an open process, and with all due respect to him and the

committee, structured rules--whether Members have offered suggestions for change or not--are not open rules. However, in this particular case, he is correct that of the five amendments that were offered by Members of my party, three of them were made in order, and none were offered on the first of the two measures.

Mr. Speaker, with only 15 days left in this session of the 113th Congress, we are here yet again doing more of the same, which is nothing. It has been reported that some among my friends across the aisle have even joked that the House shouldn't be in session in December at all.

Instead of addressing our Nation's serious immigration needs--and I might add a footnote there. There is a substantial loss to our economic undertakings by virtue of us failing to do the things that we can and should do either comprehensively or step by step to deal with the immigration circumstances of this great Nation. We could be passing ENDA, as the Senate did last week, where we could end discrimination in the workplace.

Or we could do something that all of us know needs to be done: we could work on ending sequestration. I was at two meetings this morning, one dealing with homelessness and the other dealing with the need for food, and in each instance, the parties that were the experts cited how sequestration has impacted their nonprofit organizations in trying to assist the homeless and the needy as it pertains to food. So we could be working on trying to stop this meat-ax approach that is set in motion. Yet we find ourselves passing bills that won't do anything and aren't going to go anywhere.

In fact, H.R. 2655, as my colleague has pointed out, no Member offered any amendment to it. It is so bad that nobody even wanted to fix it. The bill is nothing more than a partisan solution to a problem that doesn't exist.

The American Bar Association, the preeminent bar association among lawyers in every category in the United States of America, wrote the following:

No serious problem has been brought to the Rules

Committee's attention. There is no need to reinstate the 1983

version of rule 11 that proved contentious and diverted so

much time and energy of the bar and bench.

The ABA continued that the bill ``is not based on an empirical foundation, and the proposed amendments ignore lessons learned.''

The proposed changes would ``impede the administration of justice by encouraging additional litigation and increasing court costs and delays.''

This bill not only prevents judges from calling balls and strikes; it forces members of the bench to call balks on every pitch before the ball can even reach the plate.

The Judicial Conference, the preeminent conference of the United States courts in this country that is the body responsible for proposing the necessary changes in the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, asked Federal judges about these proposed changes. Eighty- seven percent of the judges asked prefer the existing rule 11 to the 1983 version; 85 percent of them support the safe harbor provisions; 91 percent oppose mandatory sanctions for every rule 11 violation; 84 percent think that attorneys' fees should not be awarded for every rule 11 violation. And here is the big one: 85 percent believe the amount of groundless litigation has not grown since promulgation of the 1993 rule.

These are men and women who face these issues on a daily basis. They know better than most--and almost anyone in this House of Representatives--and believe that rule 11 has plenty of teeth as is.

This bill would substitute the judgment of Congress for that of our judges. When the Judicial Conference of the United States opposes the changes in this bill, you would have to wonder who the bill is really benefiting.

It is not just the judges who oppose this bill. There is a long list of groups that include attorneys, consumer protection groups, civil rights organizations, and public interest advocates, all in opposition to this bill.

As late as this morning, I received an additional letter from the National Employment Lawyers Association. In sum and substance, they feel that they represent farms, fields, schools, factories, executive offices, military services, hospitals, and many others; and they feel that they are a unique voice in this category. They stand in opposition because they think it will proliferate the amount of litigation that is unnecessary in our overburdened courts as it is.

The court already has discretion to award sanctions, attorneys' fees, and expenses. Mr. Speaker, H.R. 2655 will create more hurdles with which deep-pocketed businesses can drag out litigation that is already too expensive and time consuming.

My friends across the aisle have produced a number of anecdotes in support of this bill; but most of the cases cited are demand letters or State law cases, neither of which are subject to the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure.

Furthermore, lawsuits are too complicated to explain with a quip of carefully selected and characterized facts. Just because a particular fact pattern is entertaining or seemingly silly does not mean the case is without merit. Just because a case makes for a good headline doesn't mean that real people weren't really injured.

The most famous example that I can think of is the woman who sued McDonald's for her coffee being too hot. When you say it like that, it sounds like you want coffee to be hot when you get it. But what is skipped over when we say it that way is that the coffee caused third- degree burns, and the lady had to be hospitalized for 8 days, received skin grafts, and then 2 years of medical treatment. Well, that hot coffee doesn't sound so silly when you look at it from that standpoint.

Speaking of bills opposed by the people they supposedly help, the second portion of this rule, H.R. 982, the FACT Act, is ironically titled because it was drafted without regard to any of the facts. There is no evidence of systemic fraud or that systemic failures encourage fraud. The GAO in its study was unable to identify endemic and overt instances of fraud that would justify these kinds of changes.

Most of the information supporters seek is available through the standard discovery process.

This bill seriously compromises the privacy of victims in order to provide offenders with litigation shortcuts. Claims of wanting to increase transparency are really laughable, since the offenders involved in these suits are allowed to maintain their privacy. This bill further victimizes people who have already been through so much.

Human error is not fraud. Isolated incidents are troubling, but fraud prevention procedures are already in place and functioning adequately.

Asbestos victims oppose this bill. My friends across the aisle would have known, if they had provided victims an opportunity; but they did not provide that opportunity. I asked the chair of this committee last evening whether or not the victims had been afforded an opportunity to make a presentation. When I pointed out to him that staff had allowed that they could have a private meeting, but they did not have an opportunity to testify during the proceedings, he agreed with me.

That seems to be a favorite tactic of my Republican friends. They have done this to asbestos victims, and they have done it to judges.

When it came to shutting down the government, they ignored the overwhelming desire of hardworking and working-poor Americans. They continued to ignore economists and the downgrading of our credit rating over the debt ceiling. They disregard the science of climate change, despite erratic, catastrophic weather patterns and rising sea levels.

I am sure that all of us recognize the most recent typhoon that has devastated the Philippines. I am hopeful that we, along with others in the world, will hasten to the rescue. America is always to be commended for our efforts when tragedies strike other nations, and I would call on other nations who have not done so to become adherent to the kind of philosophy that we have. And I hope that we can help those in the Philippines to recover rapidly.

If my friends continue to ignore the world as it is in favor of the red-tinted paradise they believe it to be, they will have no one to blame but themselves when the country decides it is time to ignore them.

I wish to say one additional thing regarding the privacy concern.

Yesterday, I called Comcast Television. The Miami Heat, champions of basketball for the last 2 years, were playing last night. So I thought that I would order the NBA game last evening.

Well, lo and behold, last evening and this morning, before I left to attend meetings, the Comcast system is down and it is not working. I was told that I would get a phone call yesterday; and I didn't get any phone call. So I called this morning and I was told I would get a phone call today, but I missed the game last night. Incidentally, the Heat won. I did see that in the paper this morning.

But I am concerned about the privacy measures because when I called Comcast, after giving them my account number and after telling them who I was and what my address was--and this is through three different automatic systems--then the young man came over the telephone. And when he came over the telephone after doing all of this--the account, my name, where I live again--he then asked me for the last four digits of my Social Security number.

The wife of a former colleague of ours who died of mesothelioma, Bruce Vento, has written actively, along with others, for us to see how this identity problem might persist if we pursue this course.

This bill would make the private information of asbestos poisoning victims readily available on the Internet, and therein lies the difference. Different now is that any information anybody needs is already in the courthouse. And they can go to the courthouse and achieve that information. But this is part of what we mean when we say this bill ``re-victimizes'' asbestos victims all over again.

If an employer or identity thief wants to get the information in a regular lawsuit, they have to physically now go to every courthouse in the country and look through paper records. But with this bill, if Alcee Hastings applies for a job at X Corporation, the manager at X can search for my name on the Internet, learn that I got money from an asbestos trust, and then decide, if he or she wanted, not to hire me out of some misplaced fear that I am someone who just goes around suing their employer. Or they could refuse to hire me because they fear I will be sick a lot or drive up their group health insurance.

An identity thief could learn the last four digits of my Social Security number. That is the same piece of information that I gave to Comcast yesterday and that my bank and credit card companies use to verify my identity during customer service calls.

What part of that do you not understand that, if you put it on the Internet, then anybody can utilize it?

Risking employment discrimination and identity theft for asbestos poisoning victims just because my colleagues on the other side want to stick it to the trial lawyers seems awfully crass to me.

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

Mr. Speaker, at this time, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), my classmate, colleague, and good friend.

Mr. Speaker, if we defeat the previous question, I am going to offer an amendment to the rule to bring up H.R. 3383, which is my good friend Representative Esty's measure, the Caregivers Expansion and Improvement Act of 2013.

To discuss her bill, I now yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Connecticut (Ms. Esty).

Mr. Speaker, I would advise my colleague at this time that I have no further speakers and that I am prepared to close if he is prepared to close.

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

I understand why we are here. I understand that my friends across the aisle evidently don't mind wasting this body's time, their resources, and money passing bills that are going to go nowhere.

In fact, later this week, I know we go to the Rules Committee on Thursday on a provision that is going to take its 46th vote to defund, delay, or repeal the Affordable Care Act and the patient protections and budget savings contained within it.

We have all got our roles to play. It is a shame, in my judgment, that my friends across the aisle would rather reenact some of the same tired political drama rather than actually accomplish something. We can do a great deal more here in the House to address the significant needs that our country has.

Let me tell you how this particular measure is going to play out. The rule is going to pass. It will be debated here on the House floor today, both measures having to do with asbestos and with so-called lawsuit measures. After they pass the House of Representatives, then it is bound over to the United States Senate where nothing is going to take place.

Now, I am not prescient--I don't have any way of predicting the future--but this particular methodology for legislation back and forth is just as much a problem when the House passes something that the Senate doesn't do anything about as when the Senate passes something that the House doesn't do anything about. I can calculate the numbers on both sides. I just personally think it is wrong for us not to let this process work its will on behalf of the American people.

Therefore, passing legislation just to have portions of either of our bases satisfied is not my idea of something to do. What we are doing here today is nothing other than wasting time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to insert the text of my amendment to the resolution, along with extraneous material, immediately prior to the vote on the previous question.

I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' and defeat the previous question. I urge a ``no'' vote on the rule and the underlying bills, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to H.R. 982, The F.A.C.T. Act.

This intrusive legislation which misuses the word ``transparency,'' would invade the privacy of asbestos victims by requiring the posting of personal exposure and medical information online and create new barriers to victims receiving compensation for their asbestos diseases.

We have witnessed decades of uncontrolled use of asbestos, even after its hazards were known, have resulted in a legacy of disease and death. Hundreds of thousands of workers and family members have been exposed to, suffered or died of asbestos-related cancers and lung disease, and the toll continues. It is estimated that each year 10,000 people in the United States are expected to die from asbestos related diseases. This is an outrage--and to add to their misery--they have to deal with the onerous provisions of H.R. 982.

Asbestos victims have faced huge barriers and obstacles to receiving compensation for their diseases. Major asbestos producers refused to accept responsibility and most declared bankruptcy in an attempt to limit their future liability. In 1994 Congress passed special legislation that allowed the asbestos companies to set up bankruptcy trusts to compensate asbestos victims and reorganize under the bankruptcy law.

But these trusts don't have adequate funding to provide just compensation, and according to a 2010 RAND study, the median payment across the trusts is only 25 percent of the claim's value. With compensation from these trusts so limited, asbestos victims have sought redress from the manufacturers of other asbestos products to which they were exposed.

Although the proponents of this legislation assert that it is intended to protect asbestos victims, not a single asbestos victim has expressed support for H.R. 982. As the widow of our former colleague Representative Bruce Vento (D-MN), who passed away from mesothelioma, stated H.R. 982 ``does not do a single thing'' to help asbestos victims and their families?

H.R. 982 disturbs a reasonably well-functioning asbestos victim compensation process. Entities facing overwhelming mass tort liability for causing asbestos injuries may, under certain circumstances, shed these liabilities and financially regain their stability in exchange for funding trusts established under Chapter II of the Bankruptcy Code to pay the claims of their victims, under certain circumstances. 3 H.R. 982, however, interferes with this longstanding process in two ways. The FACT Act would require these trusts to: (1) file a publicly available quarterly report with the bankruptcy court that would include personally identifying information about such claimants, including their names, exposure history, and basis for any payment made to them; and (2) provide any information related to payment from and demands for payment from such trust to any party to any action in law or equity concerning liability for asbestos exposure.

I urge my colleagues to vote against this utterly intrusive legislation.

The material previously referred to by Mr. Hastings of Florida is as follows:

An Amendment to H. Res. 403 Offered By Mr. Hastings of Florida

Strike all and insert the following:

Resolved, That immediately upon adoption of this resolution

the Speaker shall, pursuant to clause 2(b) of rule XVIII,

declare the House resolved into the Committee of the Whole

House on the state of the Union for consideration of the bill

(H.R. 3383) to amend title 38, United States Code, to extend

to all veterans with a serious service-connected injury

eligibility to participate in the family caregiver services

program. The first reading of the bill shall be dispensed

with. All points of order against consideration of the bill

are waived. General debate shall be confined to the bill and

shall not exceed one hour equally divided and controlled by

the chair and ranking minority member of the Committee on

Veterans' Affairs. After general debate the bill shall be

considered for amendment under the five-minute rule. All

points of order against provisions in the bill are waived. At

the conclusion of consideration of the bill for amendment the

Committee shall rise and report the bill to the House with

such amendments as may have been adopted. The previous

question shall be considered as

ordered on the bill and amendments thereto to final passage

without intervening motion except one motion to recommit with

or without instructions. If the Committee of the Whole rises

and reports that it has come to no resolution on the bill,

then on the next legislative day the House shall, immediately

after the third daily order of business under clause 1 of

rule XIV, resolve into the Committee of the Whole for further

consideration of the bill.

Sec. 2. Clause 1(c) of rule XIX shall not apply to the

consideration of H.R. 3383.

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 Republican majority agenda and a vote to allow

the Democratic minority 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-Illinois) 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.''

The Republican majority may 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

Republican Leadership Manual on the Legislative Process in

the United States House of Representatives, (6th edition,

page 135). Here's how the Republicans describe the previous

question vote in their own manual: ``Although it is generally

not possible to amend the rule because the majority Member

controlling the time will not yield for the purpose of

offering an amendment, the same result may be achieved by

voting down the previous question on the rule. . . . When the

motion for the previous question is defeated, control of the

time passes to the Member who led the opposition to ordering

the previous question. That Member, because he then controls

the time, may offer an amendment to the rule, or yield for

the purpose of amendment.''

In 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 Republican

majority's agenda and allows those with alternative views the

opportunity to offer an alternative plan.

I thank the gentleman from Florida for yielding time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this bill.

I am acutely aware of the devastating impact that asbestos exposure has had on working men and women in this country because I represent an area with several shipyards. In the last few decades, in my district alone, several thousand local shipyard workers have developed asbestosis, lung cancer, and mesothelioma from asbestos exposure that occurred between the 1940s and the 1970s. Hundreds of these workers have already died, and asbestos deaths and disabilities are continuing due to the long latency period associated with the illness.

Now, I believe that we cannot consider legislation affecting victims of asbestos exposure without remembering exactly who caused the problem. Court findings show that companies made willful and malicious decisions to expose their employees to asbestos. There are several examples:

In one case in 1986, after hearing both sides, the New Jersey Supreme Court declared:

It is, indeed, appalling to us that the company had so much

information on the hazards of asbestos workers as early as

the mid-1930s and that it not only failed to use that

information to protect the workers, but more egregiously, it

also attempted to withhold this information from the public;

A few years earlier, the Superior Court, Appellate Division of New Jersey held in the same case:

The jury here was justified in concluding that both

defendants, fully appreciating the nature, extent, and

gravity of the risk, nevertheless made a conscious and cold-

blooded business decision, in utter and flagrant disregard to

the rights of others, to take no protective or remedial

action;

In 1999, the Florida Supreme Court found:

The clear and convincing evidence in this case revealed

that, for more than 30 years, the company concealed what it

knew about the dangers of asbestos. In fact, the company's

conduct was even worse than concealment; it also included

intentional and knowing misrepresentations concerning the

dangers of its asbestos-containing product.

That is who we are talking about, and those are the types of companies that will benefit from this legislation.

Now, any suggestion that people are getting paid more than once is absolutely absurd. The fact of the matter is, because of the bankruptcies, most of them are not getting anywhere close to what they actually would have been awarded, and the bill before us does not help those victims. It actually hurts them.

The bill is nothing but a scheme to delay the proceedings and to allow the victims to get even less than they get now. Because of the delay, many of the victims will die before they get to court. This helps the guilty corporations that have inflicted this harm on innocent victims because, if the plaintiffs die before they get to court, their pain and suffering damages are extinguished. If you can delay cases enough so that the plaintiffs will die before they get to trial, the corporations will not only get to delay their payments, but when they finally have to pay, they will have to pay much less.

These people are the ones who made those conscious and cold-blooded business decisions. They are the ones who will benefit from the bill at the expense of the innocent, hardworking victims. Regrettably, many of those victims are our veterans because they were working on Navy ships.

For these reasons, Mr. Speaker, I encourage my colleagues to oppose the rule and the underlying bill.

Thank you to the gentleman from Florida.

Mr. Speaker, last week, when I was back in my district, I didn't hear about asbestos. I didn't hear about rule 11 sanctions. I heard about how harmful the government shutdown was, about the need to pass comprehensive immigration reform and of the hope that this Congress would focus on job-creating measures, but I also heard from folks in my district about the costs they face in caring for their beloved family members--veterans, who have proudly served our country.

Many of these veterans receive care at home, as they prefer, but some families are simply not able to provide home care for financial or other reasons. Now, these veterans could seek long-term institutional care through the VA, but that is much more expensive. The VA's FY14 budget request estimates that long-term institutional care costs the VA over $116,000 per veteran per year. Caregivers of the post- 9/11 victims are eligible for a stipend, which costs much less than the cost of long-term care. More than 10,000 veteran caregivers and their families have been helped so far, and that is a very good thing, but there are more who should qualify. There are more veterans in need, and we shouldn't leave them behind.

I introduced the Caregivers Expansion and Improvement Act, which would expand the eligibility for veterans' caregiver benefits to family caregivers of all veterans. According to the CBO, approximately 70,000 caregivers of pre-9/11 veterans could be eligible for this program, and let's stop kidding ourselves into believing we are not already spending more taxpayer dollars to provide care through other VA programs.

Let's work together on a solution for all of our veterans, some of whom, in fact, were exposed to asbestos and suffer from mesothelioma. I urge my colleagues to defeat the previous question so that we can consider the Caregivers Expansion and Improvement Act in order to honor our obligation to care for our veterans, an obligation which did not end on Veterans Day.