Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a great Californian and distinguished American, Bert A. Tissier. Mr. Tissier was the loving husband of Mary Tissier and the dear father of Jerry Tissier of Arizona, Bradley Tissier, M.D. of Illinois and Adrienne Tissier, of Daly City, California. He was a proud and doting grandfather to Deborah, Todd, Troy, Michael and Carrie.

Bert Tissier attended Polytechnic High School in San Francisco. At San Jose State University he was a member of Alpha Eta Rho International Aviation Fraternity and he went on to serve our country as a Major in the Army Air Force during World War II. He retired from the John Hancock Insurance Company's Special Activities Department after working for the company for 35 years.

One of Bert Tissier's great sources of pride was his daughter Adrienne's public service career, seeing her elected to the Daly City Council, serving as Mayor, and in March of this year, seeing her elected to the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors. I am exceedingly proud to have her as my colleague and friend and I respect and admire Adrienne for all she's accomplished.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Bert Tissier for his service to his community and his country, and in extending our deepest sympathy to his entire family.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the distinguished Member from the Committee on Rules for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today urging my colleagues to oppose this rule and reject the Personal Responsibility in Food Consumption Act.

I think this is a trivial bill about obesity lawsuits that have not resulted in a cent in damages against anyone. So this is not about fixing something that is broken. This is pursuing something that, most frankly, does not exist. In something that refers to the food industry, it is an old quote, an old hamburger ad, ``Where's the beef?''

There are more pressing issues for us to tackle, particularly regarding food safety.

I want to direct my comments to this area of food safety, and I want to talk about lawsuits that have consequences and very serious consequences.

Meat processors have sued the USDA to block the enforcement of food safety standards that are designed to protect the public from pathogens like e-coli and salmonella. The processors have either won or forced the government to settle these cases, and our food safety system has been terribly weakened. One of the processors failing to meet basic standards on three separate occasions was able to continue to sell meat for use in school lunches.

To fight the impact of these cases, I have introduced a bill called Kevin's Law, named in memory of a 2\1/2\-year-old boy named Kevin Kowalcyk who died from e-coli poisoning in 2001.

Kevin's law makes it clear that the USDA can set and enforce food safety standards for deadly pathogens. This is not radical policy. This is something that is supported by the National Academy of Sciences, and this legislation has bipartisan support in both the House and the Senate.

I thank my colleagues the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. English) and the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart) and Senators Harkin and Specter for cosponsoring and supporting this legislation. It is something the Congress should be advancing on.

Mr. Speaker, 5,000 Americans die from food-borne illnesses every year in our country. The lawsuits this bill seeks to stop have not harmed anyone. In fact, as I said earlier and others have mentioned, this is about pursuing something that does not even exist. When we juxtapose what is taking place here on the floor today and what I described that threatens Americans today where 5,000 Americans die from food-borne illnesses, this is what we really should be pursuing.

The American people would support that path to eliminate these pathogens that are actually taking American lives. So if we are talking about ending destructive lawsuits, the House should be debating Kevin's Law to put some teeth into our food safety system.

If there is something that the American people I think have taken for granted are our very, very high standards in terms of food safety, but they do not necessarily exist any longer. So I urge my colleagues to defeat this rule and reject the underlying bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to place into our Nation's Record the tribute which was given by Art Honda at the memorial service for his sister-in-law, Jeanne Yoshida Honda, beloved wife of Congressman Mike Honda, on February 21, 2004.

``Jeanne would really be blown away with all of you being here (especially in this weather). She would also be a little embarrassed but pleased all the same. Thank you for being

here to share this time with Mike and the family.

I have strict instructions from Mike to keep this brief since he wants to reserve as much time as possible in order to share a moment or two with each of you personally. That might be difficult, but Mike always thinks big.

In remembering Jeanne I'm sure my thoughts will mirror many of yours since Jeanne was pretty much the same person no matter who she was with. She was comfortable in her own skin, so to speak, and never tried to be anyone but herself . . . and although Mike casts a big shadow, both literally and figuratively, Jeanne was never overshadowed. She had her own life plan, developed her own career and went about it in her own unassuming but resolute manner.

I remember Jeanne as one of those rare individuals who knew early on what she wanted in life and set about achieving them in her own quiet and measured way . . . I think that all she really wanted was to marry Mike, teach little kids and have a comfortable home where she could raise a family. She achieved all that, and I don't think she ever needed nor wanted anything more.

I first got to know Jeanne when she began dating Mike over 40 years ago. We were all young then if that could be imagined. She was a 19- year-old freshman at SJS majoring in teaching.

She adored Mike. As a brother, I couldn't see it, but, eventually, even I had to admit that Jeanne was a good judge of character. They were well suited to each other. They had a loving and playful relationship, they filled each other's voids, and their separate strengths--she being introverted, disciplined and structured and Mike being extroverted, spontaneous and hardly a slave to the clock--rather than being incompatible, they dovetailed perfectly and like fine joinery their union was strong and enduring.

Now I have to say here that I'm younger than Mike--I try to point this out every chance I get--being the more youthful is one of the few things I have over him. He's got me in most every other area-- especially in that full head of hair. Anyway, I got married first--I don't know if that had anything to do with it, but one evening shortly after I got married, Jeanne visited Yoshiko and me at our little duplex apartment, and being Mike's brother, she wondered if I had any insights into his intentions as far as their future was concerned. Well, hoping to reassure her but not wanting to commit Mike to anything that he wasn't ready for, I told Jeanne that when Mike was ready to settle down, it wouldn't be with anyone but her. I told her that I thought it might be soon. She seemed OK with this, but a couple of months later there goes Mike, along with my credibility, joining the Peace Corps, and off to the jungles of El Salvador he went for the next 2 years.

So things didn't always come easy for Jeanne, but resolute as always, she simply turned her full attention to her studies, finished school and got a job teaching kindergarten in the little town of Agnew and waited for Mike to come home. Two years passed and Mike, or someone that looked vaguely like Mike, finally came home--all 130 pounds of him--imagine a dark-skinned pumpkin-on-a-stick and you'll get the picture. He also morphed into an Asian Desi Arnaz speaking fluent Spanish and singing Latin love songs to his fiancee. But of course to Jeanne he was the same Mike and they married that following June of 1967; and with her home cooking and TLC, Jeanne got Mike back up to his fighting weight and then some. I think, though, that she deferred to Mike when it came to making the menudo. I'll let Mike tell you about their belated honeymoon when he took Jeanne to visit El Salvador, deep in the heart of Central America--by the way, they didn't fly . . . they drove round-trip . . . in his Volkswagen beetle. Talk about a tough lady.

So just a month shy of turning 25, Jeanne had her man and she had her career. In a few short years she and Mike moved into their first and only home where she raised two kids and a German shepherd named Orejas. Jeanne was a full-time Mom by then and under her ever present guidance, Mark and Michelle grew into adulthood, graduated from college, married and embarked on successful careers of their own--and to Jeanne's delight--one grandchild on its the way. Once the heavy-lifting part of motherhood was completed, Jeanne returned to her other kids, this time at Baldwin School in the Oakgrove School District. I think she achingly missed her school kids as well as her colleagues this past year--the obvious became clear to me that school was a very big part of Jeanne's life.

Just a brief mention about Jeanne's values . . . Anyone who knows her would agree that she had solid June Cleaver values and a kind of childlike innocence, but she also possessed common sense wisdom and carried a kind of moral authority about her that was both subtle and understated--and not at all preachy or controlling. It was evident in her conduct and sometimes, as I've experienced on occasion, in just a look or a well-timed comment or two.

I think Mike would be the first to agree that he owes much of his success to Jeanne. The constancy and stability she provided helped him stay the course in a hectic public life that often overlapped into their private lives, something that Jeanne had long ago adapted to and accommodated with grace. But the title of Honorable didn't exist at home. Over the years, Jeanne kept Mike grounded in her gently assertive way. Her moral compass always pointed north and whenever Mike needed to check his bearings he never needed to look any further than his partner. Jeanne will always remain in his thoughts--one could be certain of that.

Although Jeanne was very much a part of our family for all these years, she never stopped being a Yoshida. She continued to be a source of strength and a source of support to her mother, Rose Yoshida, who had been so extremely proud of her eldest and only daughter . . . and she never stopped being a big sister to her brothers, Stanley and Dick, whom she remained devoted to.

Brother Dick and daughter Michelle were Jeanne's primary care givers over this past year--joined of course by Mike, who rushed home when she took a turn for the worse, and son Mark and his bride Mekar who both made repeated trips from LA, and not least of all Jeanne's son-in-law, Travis Phillips, who shuttled back and forth from Seattle.

In the end Jeanne was surrounded by her family and by an abiding love that had its genesis in that 19 year-old freshman who began dating Mike over 42 years ago. In a very real sense Jeanne's life had come full circle. She wanted to go on of course and she fought the good fight, devoid of self-pity and with extraordinary courage and a stubborn optimism. But Jeanne prevailed long before the events of the past year, because she had attained the only things that were important to her. Those life accomplishments, and the values that she instilled, will live on.

You did good, Jeanne. I know I speak for everyone here, family and friends, when I say thank you, Jeanne. Thank you for being part of our lives. We're all the better for it.''

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring the extraordinary life of Jeanne Yoshida Honda and in extending our deepest sympathies to her beloved husband, our colleague, Congressman Mike Honda, their children and their entire family.

Mr. Speaker, because my flight, United Airlines #950 was cancelled due to mechanical problems, I was absent from votes on February 3rd. Had I been present, I would have voted ``Yea'' on rollcall vote Nos. 12, 13 and 14.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to place in our Nation's Record the remarks made by William B. Gould IV, Charles A. Beardsley Professor of Law, Emeritus, Stanford Law School, and Chairman of the National Labor Relations Board from 1994 to 1998, at the Wilmington Riverwalk Watermen Sign Dedication.

Thank you for your invitation to speak at this Riverwalk

Waterman Sign Dedication here in Wilmington, North Carolina,

the City of William Benjamin Gould's birth in 1837 and his

escape from slavery 25 years later. Let me also give special

thanks to Beverly Tetterton of the New Hanover Public Library

for providing research and resource in my writing of Diary of

a Contraband, and who has been a key organizer of this event.

Also, I wish to acknowledge the members of my family present

here today: my wife, Hilda Elizabeth Gould, and my sister,

Dorothy Gerber and her husband, Hermann. They and my three

sons, William Benjamin V, Timothy Samuel, and Edward Blair

join in the honor and tribute to the brave men of September

21, 1862, particularly my great-grandfather, William Benjamin

Gould.

Throughout the South, there is scarcely a word noted about

the great struggle for freedom and liberation undertaken

nearly a century and a half ago in the War of the Rebellion.

And there is little or no mention or acknowledgment of the

black military involvement in this effort, the ``holiest of

all causes'' as William B. Gould called it, to obtain the New

World's central political and legal achievement.

As I have traveled through the states of the former ``would

be Confederacy'', as William B. Gould called it, I have been

struck by the abiding omnipresence of Confederate statues and

commemorative markers. Just this past weekend, we passed

through Richmond's Monument Avenue to see again the memorials

to Jefferson Davis, ``would be King Jeff' as William B. Gould

called him, Stonewall Jackson and Jeb Stuart and the laud and

honor given to their pursuit of ``constitutional principles''

and the Confederate Navy against which William B. Gould and

his comrades fought and defeated.

Thus it is meet and right that Wilmington, North Carolina,

this day takes note of the perilous journey that William B.

Gould and 7 other comrades began here at the foot of Orange

Street on the night of September 21, 1862, and the wider

complement of 14 others who left Wilmington in concert with

those 8 who boarded the U.S.S. Cambridge. It is meet and

right that we note their names, William B. Gould's comrades

being Joseph Hall, Andrew Hall, George Price, John Mackey,

Charles Giles, John Mitchell and William Chanse. These men

were to use their knowledge of North Carolina and its

waterways on behalf of our country to interdict supplies

destined for Lee's army in Virginia.

But as your sign properly notes, the September 21st escape

involves others as well, many of them William B. Gould's

associates and correspondents: Virgil Richardson (for whom

one of William B. Gould's sons may be named) and Ben Greer

who boarded the Penobscot, and Thomas Cowan, Charles Mallett

and Frank Clinton of the Monticello. All of them boarded

these North Atlantic Blockading vessels near the mouth of the

Cape Fear River for the same purpose . . . freedom and

participation in the war effort against slavery. Many of

these men, both literate and skilled, became key players in

Reconstruction, the South's first brief Nineteenth Century

interlude with democracy. Many, though not William B. Gould,

returned to Wilmington after its liberation in 1865.

These men, part of the 8,000 who fled the Confederacy to

fight for freedom in the U.S. Navy were part of a silent

black exodus which transformed the war's nature. They made my

life possible. And more than any other event since September

21, 1862, and its aftermath, here and now, 141 years and 1

month later, they provide hope for my grandchildren, Timothy

Samuel Jr. and Joseph Jeremy and the generations of all

mankind yet to come.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring the words of William G. Gould IV and all they represent as he remembers his great- grandfather, William B. Gould.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to two extraordinary Americans and distinguished Californians, Paul and Sharon Elerick, who are being honored as Democrats of the Year by the Santa Cruz County Democratic Central Committee.

Paul and Sharon Elerick met in 1958 at an ice cream shop in Michigan and have been utterly devoted to each other ever since. They have raised two children, Paul Jr. and Denise, who are now raising their own families in Santa Cruz County.

Paul Elerick was elected Chair of the Santa Cruz County Democratic Central Committee in 1998 and served in that position until 2003. In that time, he managed three Democratic Headquarters and has contributed mightily to create countless successful campaigns.

Between them, Paul and Sharon Elerick have worked to elect some of the greatest leaders of Santa Cruz County, including Julian Comacho, John Bakalian, Leon Panetta, Bob Taren, Sam Farr, Dale Dawson, Gary Patton, Mardi Wormhoudt, Robley Levley, Ellen Pirie, Ron Ruiz, Bob Lee, Fred Keeley, John Laird and Bill Monning.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in extending to Paul and Sharon Elerick our sincerest congratulations as they are honored as the Santa Cruz County Democratic Central Committee's Democrats of the Year. We are a better community, a better country, a better people and a stronger democracy because of them and all that they have done.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to honor California State Senator Byron Sher, the most highly regarded environmental legislator in California, who will be retiring this year after representing San Mateo and Santa Clara Counties in the California State Legislature for nearly a quarter century. Senator Sher will be honored on Friday, January 30, 2004 by the San Mateo County Democratic Party for his extraordinary public service.

Senator Sher began his public service in 1965 when he was elected to the Palo Alto City Council where he served for nine years, including two terms as Mayor. He was a Commissioner of the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission from 1978 to 1980, and served on the Committee on Environmental Quality for the National League of Cities and the League of California Cities. His work on these bodies would serve him exceedingly well in years to come.

Byron Sher was elected to the California State Assembly in November, 1980, where he served with distinction as a leader on environmental policy for over fifteen years. He was then elected to the Senate in 1996 in a special election to represent the 11th District, which is geographically and culturally diverse, spanning from Belmont to San Jose, and which includes major portions of the South San Francisco Bay and the San Mateo County Coast.

Throughout Senator Sher's legislative career, he has been regarded as the premier legislator on environmental issues. He is not only the first Chairman of the Senate Environmental Quality Committee, he is also the author of countless benchmark laws that have led the State of California to enact some of the most significant environmental protection policies in our Nation. Among the laws he has authored are the California Clean Air Act, the Integrated Waste Management Act, and the Safe Drinking Water Act. He has strengthened the State's timber regulations with his Surface Mining and Reclamation Act and been at the forefront of computer recycling programs to ensure that the dangerous byproducts of the information age, such as mercury, don't contaminate our landfills and water supplies. Senator Sher also authored the Nation's first law to prevent toxic contamination of water supplies from leaking underground storage tanks. Virtually all his legislation is considered the gold standard for environmental conservation and protection laws throughout our country.

Senator Sher is also considered one of the foremost experts on consumer protection and government ethics. He has consistently been ranked one of the State's top ten legislators for intelligence and integrity by the California Journal Magazine. Despite the many demands on his time, Senator Sher continues to serve as a member of the Steering Committee of the National Council on Competition and Electric Services, as a California Commissioner on the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, and as a member of the Wildlife Conservation Board.

Byron Sher has also been an important part of the academic community. He was a Fulbright Research Scholar in New Zealand and held academic teaching positions in law at Southern Methodist University, the University of Southern California and Harvard Law School before coming to Stanford University. At Stanford, Senator Sher's passion for the rights of his fellow citizens could be seen in the coursework he taught as a professor of law: Consumer credit, consumer protection, as well as contract and commercial law. At Stanford he's been Chairman of the Human Relations Commission and the Faculty Senate, and was a member of the University Budget Priorities Advisory Commission.

Mr. Speaker, I'm proud to call Byron Sher my friend and my colleague in public service. This quiet, humble, decent and brilliant man is a source of great pride to the Democratic Party, to our mutual constituents, to all Californians and to our entire Nation. I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring and thanking Senator Sher for his lifetime of extraordinary service to California and our country. Because of him and his distinguished service, we are unmistakably a stronger and a better Nation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the ranking member and I thank the gentleman from California (Mr. Ose) for this legislation. It is an important piece of legislation, and I am proud to be a cosponsor of it.

This is the first fund-raising stamp in the United States, and it benefits the eradication of breast cancer. During the holidays at home wherever I was, whether it was a holiday party, in the grocery store, wherever I was, there was someone that came up to me and said I went to the post office to buy the breast cancer stamp, and was told that it is no longer available because Congress has not reauthorized it. People know, and they have become attached to this effort and very supportive of it for what it produces.

The stamp was introduced in 1998, and the profits are split between the National Institutes of Health and the Department of Defense's Health Research Division, as called for by Congress. Over 450 million of these 45 cent stamps have been sold. I am very proud to say that of the $35 million raised, California continues to lead the way because we have contributed roughly 21 percent of the money that has been raised nationwide.

Mr. Speaker, my colleagues have expressed our collective concerns about the issue of breast cancer. Certainly during my tenure in the Congress I have been very proud to have worked on the causes of breast cancer, for the optimal treatments for breast cancer, and ultimately a cure for breast cancer. These have all been priorities of mine.

I see that the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) is here on

the floor. We worked very hard together to pass the Breast and Cervical Cancer Treatment Act, which was introduced and passed in the 106th Congress. As one of my colleagues said, more than 2 million women in America are living with breast cancer today. During the time that we have been on the floor and making comments on this, three women in the United States have died as a result of breast cancer. The statistics we still carry with us. I think this is an important effort, and I thank everyone who is a part of this effort and urge all of my colleagues to vote for this measure and make it unanimous so we send a message out to Americans who have gone to their post office and not found this stamp available that Congress has reauthorized it.

Mr. Speaker, I thank our distinguished ranking member and my colleague, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood) who, together we introduced this legislation, H.R. 3493. I appreciate always his cooperation and that of his staff. This is not the first effort where we have worked together and been successful. We are proud of that and proud of the work that has come out of our committee.

This bill makes important technical corrections. While it may seem a little dull and dry, the technical corrections really enhance the Medical Device User Fee and Modernization Act which was a very important piece of legislation which allowed major new programs that really streamline the Food and Drug Administration's medical device approval process to be actually implemented. This bipartisan bill is about making sure that patients are, one, able to safely benefit from new medical technologies and, secondly, as quickly as possible. As medical technologies become more advanced, it takes more attention and resources to ensure that these products are safe and effective.

Last year, the House overwhelmingly passed the Medical Device User Fee and Modernization Act which helps the FDA get lifesaving products to patients faster, as well as resources to the agency to assure this. Specifically under that law, and I think it is important to underscore what was in that law and why we are bolstering it, the importance of bolstering it today, the medical device industry agreed to pay fees to the FDA for every product it proposes to market. These fees will help the FDA hire additional staff, much needed, I might add, and to purchase needed equipment so that they can review the products on a timely basis.

Secondly, the resources were increased for additional inspections of manufacturing plants and facilities, a very, very important part of that legislation, as well as the creation of an Office of Combination Products to shepherd advanced products, such as devices with drug coating, through the approval process. This new administrative flexibility allows the FDA to devote its resources to the devices that patients need most.

Finally, the bill created a way to regulate what are known as reprocessed devices. Some people may have tuned into nationally televised programs where the national discovery was made that reprocessed devices were being used in hospitals unbeknownst to doctors and unbeknownst to patients. I did not like that when I heard it, and we addressed it in the bill.

The bill requires that reprocessed products undergo additional scrutiny by the FDA and that they be held to the highest standards that the FDA can apply. It also required that doctors, who are often unaware that they are using a reprocessed device, be informed about the reused device so that they can, in turn, inform their patients about the reused device.

This Technical Corrections Act is an important bill because it is ultimately, Mr. Speaker, about patients, and it will implement the Medical Device User Fee and Modernization Act as Congress fully intended.

One of the best parts of doing something like this is to work with the very able people that helped make it possible, so I want to thank the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), chairman of our full committee; the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis), our distinguished subcommittee chairman; the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), ranking member of our full committee; the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman) and certainly my colleague, who is the ranking member of the Subcommittee on Health.

I also want to thank several staff people: Pat Ronan of Chairman Tauzin's staff; Alan Eisenberg of the office of the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Greenwood); John Ford of the office of the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell); and Anne Witt of the office of the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman). Without all of these good people, we would not be here today doing this. So we have come a long way, and I think we have created something that will serve our country very well.

I urge all of my colleagues to vote for this, to make it unanimous. We will then accomplish yet something else very good and important for the American people.

Mr. Speaker, I rise to urge my colleagues to vote against the Conference Report on the Fiscal Year 2004 Consolidated Appropriations bill.

This Conference Report does a disservice to our constituents and to our country's democratic principles because it fails to respect the votes of Members of Congress and abuses the appropriations process.

For example:

It weakens the prohibition against the new FCC media ownership rules, despite the fact that stronger restrictions were agreed to by both Houses of Congress.

It allows the Labor Department's new overtime regulations to go forward, flouting the will of the House and Senate and jeopardizing overtime pay for over 8 million workers.

It underfunds the No Child Left Behind Act by $8 billion.

Net funding for the NIH is $145 million less than passed by the House and $182 million less than the Senate supported.

This bill fails in other important ways:

It cuts funds for state and local law enforcement by $500 million.

It implements a controversial school voucher program in the District of Columbia.

It provides $230 million less for veterans' benefits than Republicans have promised.

It rescinds $1.8 billion in appropriations--largely from the Department of Homeland Security.

Because of these and many other serious flaws, I cannot in good conscience support this bill and I urge my colleagues to oppose the Conference Report. We could be doing so much more for our country.

Mr. Speaker, I support the conference report and thank the chairman and ranking member for their work in this effort. I'm particularly pleased that the serious shortcomings of the bill which I've raised at our committee have been addressed.

The problem of spam has become so prolific that by the end of this year half of all e-mails sent will be spam.

The numbers are staggering: 76 billion spam e-mails will be delivered in 2003; 50 percent of kids have received e-mails containing pornographic or sexually explicit information; and U.S. businesses will spend close to $10 billion to fight spam this year.

And marketers have brazenly claimed that the success of the ``Do Not Call List'' will drive them to spam even more, costing U.S. businesses and consumers even more.

I sponsored legislation to curb the epidemic of spam and crafted the original proposal to empower the FTC to replicate the enormous success of the ``Do Not Call List'' by creating a ``Cannot Spam List.'' I'm very pleased that a version of this measure has been included in the conference report, which I hope the FTC will implement soon after enactment of this bill.

I'm also pleased that the conference report strengthens some of the weaknesses of the Senate bill, especially by giving greater authority to states to enforce these laws.

This legislation does not end the entire problem of spam. I'll continue to fight for measures to prevent unauthorized and unwanted e- mail from flooding our inboxes and our computer networks. But this is a good start and important and I urge my colleagues to support it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise against this bill which, in my view, I used the yardstick to measure it by my mother; and in doing the calculations, my mother, at 89\1/2\ years old, will be hurt by this, as will women her age across the country. She and they deserve so much better.

It's with great disappointment that I rise today to express my opposition to this Medicare Prescription Drug legislation. As the daughter of a Medicare beneficiary, I know first hand how important prescription drug coverage is for America's seniors, and I held out great hope that this would be the year we finally succeeded in providing seniors with an affordable, stable benefit.

Unfortunately, now that we have the long-awaited legislation before us, it is clear that it doesn't embody any of these important principles.

This bill does nothing to lower drug costs for America's senior citizens. It provides an unstable insurance benefit, undercuts the viability of the employer-provided retirement health insurance, and fundamentally undermines the Medicare program that has served seniors so well for nearly 40 years.

Specifically, the bill: Brings privatization to the Medicare program in 2010. Although this is being described as a ``demonstration project,'' this ``demonstration'' will affect as many as 7 million beneficiaries who will be forced to pay higher premiums and more money to keep the same benefits they have today if they don't join an HMO; has a $2800 gap in drug coverage that will leave millions of seniors without any help in paying for their drugs for part of the year, even though they will have to continue to pay their monthly premiums; Creates disincentives to employers to retain retiree drug coverage. An estimated 2 to 3 million seniors who have good drug coverage now through retiree health plans could lose it under the proposed plan.

In California, this means more than a quarter of a million seniors may lose their employer-sponsored health care. Real reform would encourage employers to expand retiree coverage, not take it away; Purposefully creates, for the first time, disparities between seniors across the country. Seniors living in different areas of the country will pay different premiums for the exact same benefits. In another first, this bill links how much a senior earns to how much they will pay in premiums. If a senior makes more than $80,000 they will pay higher premiums than the rest of the Medicare population.

Does not address the rising cost of prescription drugs for individuals, nor does it harness overall Medicare spending in future years. In fact, the bill specifically prohibits the Secretary of Health and Human Services from negotiating with drug companies for lower prices.

Jeopardizes coverage for cancer patients by drastically cutting funding for chemotherapy drugs.

Finally, this bill dramatically changes Medicare by limiting the total amount of money that can be spent on the program--meaning services will be cut and premiums will increase.

I do want to take a moment to highlight the few bright spots in this bill.

The bill reverses a recent decision by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that threatened seniors' access to innovative treatments. For years biotechnology products, which often represent the most advanced treatments for diseases, were critically under- reimbursed. This bill ensures that these life-saving treatments will be available for all seniors by raising payment levels to an appropriate level. This bill also provides more speedy coverage of new medical device technologies and more streamlined processes by new technologies in the Medicare program.

Second, the bill includes critical funding for relief from the devastating payment reductions to Medicaid disproportionate share hospitals. This is very important for California which has a severe budget shortfall. The funding in the Conference Report restores several hundred million dollars to safety-net providers in California over the next 10 years. With more than six million MediCal recipients and 6.3 million uninsured residents in California, Medicaid DSH funds are invaluable to the safety net hospitals that serve low-income populations.

Unfortunately, these issues aren't enough to overcome the faulty foundation that this bill rests on. It's with a heavy heart that I say ``This Medicare Prescription Drug bill should be rejected.'' We have not honored the seniors who have done so much to make our country great, and I cannot justify a ``yes'' vote on a bad bill just for the opportunity to say we've succeeded in providing a drug benefit.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to vote against the bill.

Mr. Speaker, we have all not only been taught but tried to abide by something, part of the Ten Commandments, honor thy father and thy mother. I think more than anything else this evening, that is really what we are talking about, honoring our fathers and our mothers, our grandfathers and our grandmothers, the seniors, the elders of our Nation that are part of our Nation's family. It is not just my mother and father, and it is not just yours. It is collectively those that have built the country and handed it over to a new generation.

I do not believe that the process in this House for this bill is anything for the Members of Congress to be proud of, because if you do not honor those that represent the mothers and fathers of this country, it is a singular disgrace. So I start with that process. And I do not believe my friends, whom I have worked with day in and day out on the other side, tonight in their heart of hearts can be proud of that. It is dark. It is bad. It is wrong. And it has set a very bad tone for this bill.

We love Medicare on this side. You cannot drive a wedge between us and Medicare. If this were prescription drugs only, it would sail through the House. But that is the loss leader on this. This is about rewriting the contract between our mothers and fathers and our Nation. We object. We do not think it should be parceled out. My grandparents never said God bless the insurance companies. They said God bless America. Vote against this bill. It is wrong and it is bad. It dishonors our mothers and fathers and our grandparents.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a distinguished Californian, Paul Scannell, as he retires from his service as Assistant County Manager of the County of San Mateo, California.

Paul Scannell has served as Assistant County Manager since 1982. During that time he has represented the County in complex and sensitive negotiations with other governmental agencies, companies, and persons doing business with the County. He's also worked in cooperation with County department managers to recommend County programs and activities, and managed the County team responsible for public financing issues. He has served on a wide variety of committees, as well as advising and staffing the Charter Review Committee. He has also acted as the County Manager in the Manager's absence.

Paul Scannell prepared for his career by earning a Bachelor's degree in Economics from the University of San Francisco and a Master's of Public Administration from Golden Gate University. He also pursued graduate studies in Economics at the University of California, Berkeley. He held positions of increasing importance with the City and County of San Francisco between 1964 and 1982, including serving as Deputy Director of the Clean Water Program, Assistant to the Chief Administrative Officer and as Senior Departmental Personnel Officer at San Francisco General Hospital.

I had the honor to work with Paul Scannell for ten years as a Member of the Board of Supervisors, and I saw and experienced firsthand his professionalism, his integrity and his extraordinary knowledge of County government.

Mr. Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Paul Scannell for his superb service to our community and our country and wish him every blessing in the years ahead. He has established the gold standard for public service and we are grateful to him for it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this conference report. And I want to express in the beginning of my comments my appreciation for the hard work, the cooperation of all of my colleagues on the committee, of course, our distinguished chairman and, most particularly, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Harman), who I think really leads us so well on our side and really brings such credit to the work that we do. To the staff of our committee, and, certainly, from where I speak, the minority staff; The word ``intelligence'' is used all the time--I think it resides first with them. They are second to none. And I really salute them for the work they do day in and day out.

This legislation was prepared with our minds still focused on the lessons of September 11 and as the drama in Iraq was unfolding. By these yardsticks this conference report reflects important progress in many areas. One of the most significant lessons to emerge from the joint congressional inquiry into the 9/11 tragedy is the need to improve information-sharing through the extension of modern information technology. Sounds like a no-brainer. But what we have found is that simply was not the case.

The Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence made a concerted effort this year to chart a path to bring the information revolution to the intelligence community. So it is imperative for the Congress to sustain the pressure next year and for the executive branch to embrace this vision.

Regarding so-called data mining of government and private sector databases, this is an extraordinarily large issue, and it contains extensive information on U.S. persons. And this conference report strikes what we believe is the right balance between security and privacy protection for the American people. The American people care about this. The conference report authorizes continued development of data mining tools, but it prohibits their use against domestic databases. It calls for the administration to begin defining the policies, the procedures, and the technologies necessary to safeguard this privacy.

I would like to turn just briefly to the problem of prewar intelligence. The intelligence community has to face up to the problems and the shortcomings in its Iraq estimates. That is why I strongly support the conference report's requirement for the intelligence community to report on lessons learned.

I want to again thank the committee, the committee staff, my colleagues, most especially our gifted leader, the vice chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.