Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, despite the hard work and good intentions of many Members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, we have lost the forest for the trees, and so I rise today in opposition to conference report on H.R. 1.

We have lost sight of what seniors struggle with most, drug costs and the cost of coverage, and believe me, seniors have noticed that we have lost sight of them.

In the beginning and in the end, for me this issue has always been about the high cost of drugs and the need to affordably expand coverage. Regrettably, this bill prohibits ways to lower costs of drugs for American seniors, and for many, the coverage provided in the bill comes at a high price they simply cannot pay.

I urge my colleagues to reject this bill. Please go back to the negotiating table and give seniors what they really need, affordable drugs and affordable drug coverage.

Mr. Speaker, over the last 7 years, Oregon seniors have told me

that their top concern is the high cost of prescription drugs coupled with the lack of coverage for these lifesaving medicines under the Medicare program.

Regrettably, the bill before us today does nothing to address the high cost of drugs, and it comes at too high a price for coverage. Many seniors would lose the expanded coverage they currently have through their retirement and many others couldn't afford the high premiums, deductibles and gaps in coverage.

Despite the hard work and good intentions of many members of Congress on both sides of the aisle, we have lost the forest for the trees.

And so I rise today in opposition to the conference report on H.R. 1.

In August, I sat in the House gallery with some guests as the reimportation bill came to the floor. We sat with a group of interns and junior staffers. Along the back wall was a line of representatives of the pharmaceutical industry. It was an interesting mix.

From that unique vantage point, we watched members on the floor who were not speaking to represent ``sides of the aisle,'' but who joined together across the aisle to form the People's House. It was an interesting perspective on the situation.

You couldn't necessarily tell what anyone's party affiliation was by the impassioned way they spoke about an issue that cuts across party lines. The vast majority of us were adamant about fighting for the people we represent back home who are no longer willing to tolerate the fact that people in Mexico and Canada can get their drugs for less than Americans.

That bill passed overwhelmingly, and yet this conference report has failed to include drug reimportation. It has failed to address the elephant in the middle of the living room: the high cost of drugs.

Seniors can't afford drugs, and they can't afford high priced coverage, or loss of coverage they currently enjoy.

Unfortunately, when we were closest to getting agreement on making medicines more affordable for all of the Nation's seniors, the pharmaceutical companies, who make the lifesaving drugs that patients need, killed every attempt to allow Americans to benefit from the same low drug costs that other countries enjoy.

They also made sure that this legislation specifically prohibits the Medicare program from negotiating the prices of drugs, a power that even other government agencies, such as the Department of Veterans' Affairs, have. Why? Because seniors would finally have the leverage to lower drug costs for themselves in this country. They would make one heck of a purchasing pool.

And, when we were closest to getting agreement on improving coverage for everyone, the conferees failed to adequately protect retirees' health coverage. Unfortunately, somewhere along the way we forgot that this isn't just a pharmaceuticals bill, this is a seniors' bill.

We lost sight of what senior's struggle with most . . . drug costs and the cost of coverage. And believe me, seniors themselves have noticed that we've lost sight of them.

Take 79-year old Ruth Beale of Portland who was just diagnosed with Parkinson's disease who writes: ``I still work 3 days a week as a companion to a 103 year-old. This gives me just enough cash to pay the $300/month for my prescriptions. Of course that doesn't include the pain medication for the Parkinson's, my doctor gives me free samples when she can, though sometimes she runs out.

My Social Security check is barely enough to cover rent, (and I live in a subsidized senior apartment), food and the $72 per month for my Medicare HMO premium. Under this plan, I wouldn't get any help for my drug costs. I really can't afford to pay any more than I do now. So I guess I'll just keep on working until I can't anymore--I'm going to give this Parkinson's a run for it's money though.''

And God bless her.

Although Dorothy Patch of Salem has supplemental insurance, she still pays over $230.00 per month out of pocket for her prescription drugs. Dorothy is concerned about being pushed out of the coverage.

Dorothy figures that she would actually pay more for her coverage if this legislation passes. Why?

1. Only 75 percent of her drugs would be covered up to $2,250 per year.

2. From $2,250 to $5,100 Dorothy would fall into the ``donut hole'' and not receive any coverage at all, while she is still responsible for paying a $250.00 deductible and $35.00 monthly premiums.

3. Even though under her current plan, Dorothy is paying $230.00 per month, there is no donut hole in her coverage and she is covered no matter how high her drug costs become per year.

4. She is using a fee for service system and does not want to be forced into an HMO.

The truth of the matter is that people who currently have no coverage would gain a little at a very high price, a cost that many who have contacted me say they cannot afford. For many in the district I represent, this legislation is a step backwards. For others, it is a sore disappointment that we were unable to slay the giant and make reasonably priced medicines within their grasp.

At the beginning and in the end, for me, this issue has always been about the high cost of drugs and the need to affordably expand coverage. Regrettably, this bill prohibits ways to lower drug costs for American seniors and, for many, the coverage provided in the bill comes at a high price they simply cannot pay.

I urge my colleagues to reject this bill, go back to the negotiating table and give seniors what they really need: affordable drugs and affordable drug coverage.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this legislation which will take important steps towards reforming the National Flood Insurance Program that will, in the end, benefit taxpayers, the environment, and people who suffer from frequent flooding by improving mitigation programs.

Mitigation is important both in terms of saving lives and in terms of saving dollars. There is a great example of a success in one of the counties in my district, Tillamook County. Five rivers flow into Tillamook Bay, leading to frequent floods during rainy Oregon winters. Realizing the repeated problem with flooding they face, the county and local businesses and residents have stepped up to address the issue. From the earliest days of their participation in Project Impact, Tillamook has been involved in flood mitigation before anyone else knew what that meant, and they have reduced the damages caused by flooding significantly. While floods still come frequently, they no longer cause million upon millions of dollars in damages to residents and businesses thanks to the great work done in Tillamook County. In this regard, I believe it is important to make sure the Federal Government is a partner in these efforts and does not penalize Tillamook and other localities for their hard work. One part of this is ensuring that local communities, who are knowledgeable about the local businesses, are the ones making the decisions instead of a Federal agency like FEMA. Based on communications with the gentleman from Oregon (Mr. Blumenauer) and FEMA, local communities will indeed have the decision-making authority under this legislation.

I have spoken with many local governments and civic leaders from Oregon, including mayors, county commissioners, city council members and local flood plain managers. Each have expressed their support for the creation of a better mitigation program to prevent flood damage from ever happening. This bill accomplishes that goal.

I rise in support of the gentleman from Oregon's and the gentleman from Nebraska's legislation and urge my colleagues to vote in favor of it.

Mr. Speaker, I offer a motion to instruct.

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

Mr. Speaker, I stand here in the well of the people's House today to offer a motion to instruct the conferees of the Medicare prescription drug bill to provide a much-needed payment update to physicians for the next 2 years and eliminate provisions that would privatize Medicare.

Right now, as we speak, doctors are faced with the tough choices of treating patients, old friends and new patients alike, or turning them away since the reimbursements under the Medicare program have not kept pace

with the costs of practicing medicine. This is not an argument about the quality of health care; it is about the ability to receive health care at all. This is a particular problem in rural areas like those that make up part of my district in Oregon.

The decisions that we make on this bill will have a disproportionate impact on the ability of millions of Americans to have access to health care. We cannot enable more doctors to see more Medicare patients if we continue cutting payments to doctors. If we do not act soon, there will be another 4.5 percent reduction in reimbursements to physicians who are treating those who count on their care the most, our seniors. That 4.5 percent cut represents a loss of $20 million to my State alone. The overall costs are staggering, and the damage to the health of American seniors will be as well.

For a State with historically low Medicare reimbursements like Oregon, the impact is even greater. According to the AMA, the cost of practicing medicine has gone up by more than one-third since 1991. Over the same period of time, the rise in Medicare payments has been less than 10 percent. Just last year, doctor payments were cut by 5.4 percent; and if we allow those further cuts to take effect, this would be the fifth time in 12 years that rates have been cut. If cut, the level would drop to nearly 8 percent below the 2001 level.

My doctors tell me their costs have not dropped by 8 percent, and I suspect that doctors across the country would agree. It makes no sense whatsoever to cut payments when the costs of practicing medicine are on the rise. Doctors simply cannot afford to take more cuts. I am worried whether we are going to have a Medicare system by the cuts we are asking doctors to take. Already one-quarter of family physicians across the Nation are saying they cannot accept any new Medicare patients. Who knows how many more will choose to do the same in January when they are told reimbursements have been slashed again.

As a Nation, we must provide our doctors with a means to treat and provide health care to our citizens. This motion would instruct the conferees to protect the language in the House version of the prescription drug bill that would reverse the cut to our physicians while providing a 1.5 percent increase to payments for the next 2 years.

To fund the increases in payments to our doctors, this motion strikes funding for privatization provisions in the underlying prescription drug bill. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates that under a privatized Medicare, premiums would skyrocket for seniors who choose to stay in traditional Medicare. I am concerned that by increasing the premiums of traditional Medicare many beneficiaries would be forced into HMOs and other private plans.

This small, but critical, increase will give doctors nationwide the wherewithal to continue treating seniors on Medicare, and it will give Congress time to develop a permanent fix for this flawed system that shortchanges doctors and continues to restrict the ability of seniors to access health care services.

I ask my colleagues to work with me to fix this Medicare physician reimbursement formula which currently threatens to destabilize the Medicare program. Seniors rely on their doctors and the medicines they need to stay healthy. They have waited too long for a prescription drug benefit in Medicare and relief from the high cost of prescription drugs. We must work together for a drug benefit that prevents seniors from risking their health by cutting pills in half or having to choose between paying for medicine or paying their rent, electricity, or buying food.

For 4 decades this Nation promised that Medicare would provide health care for all seniors. Medicare ensures these hard-working older Americans who have paid taxes and paid into the system that they have health care coverage. I urge my colleagues to vote for this motion to allow our constituents to continue to have access to high-quality care.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 7 minutes to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown).

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

Just a reminder, I think that everybody on the floor of the House, all Members from both the Republican and Democratic Party, would be happy to see those changes, that in fact they would not pay for amputation of a leg or an arm and would pay for diabetes treatment along the way.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) who has been working on health care issues the entire time he has been in Congress.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Hastings).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Lee).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. George Miller).

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

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley) and I have worked on many issues together. I guess I would like to offer today to work on another issue. Oregon happens to be a very low reimbursement State because we have been very efficient in our health care. I am glad that Florida has a high reimbursement rate. I would just like to be there with them. And our State, because it is a low reimbursement State, I have areas in my district where doctors are filled. Because they lose money every time they take a Medicare patient, they do not want to take anymore. It is not because they do not want to provide the service; it is that they cannot afford to do it. They cannot afford to have 100 percent of their clients Medicare clients because, again, of the reimbursement level.

I urge my colleagues to vote for this motion to direct the millions that the House bill uses for privatization to improving Medicare payments for physicians. Physicians cannot deliver 21st-century medicine to our seniors with payment rates that do not cover the cost of their care.

My motion would address the concerns of doctors across the country and ensure that they are able to treat Medicare patients. Instead of putting the Medicare system in jeopardy through risky and untested privatization schemes, we should protect our constituents' access to care.

I urge my colleagues to support our doctors and their patients and to vote ``yes'' on the motion to instruct.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, under rule XXII, clause 7(c), I hereby announce my intention to offer a motion to instruct on H.R. 1, the prescription drug bill.

The form of the motion is as follows:

I move that the managers on the part of the House at the

conference on the disagreeing votes of the two Houses on the

Senate amendment to the bill H.R. 1 be instructed as follows:

(1) To reject the provisions of subtitle C of title II of

the House bill.

(2) To reject the provisions of section 231 of the Senate

amendment.

(3) Within the scope of conference, to increase payments

for physician services by an amount equal to the amount of

savings attributable to the rejection of the aforementioned

provisions.

(4) To insist upon section 601 of the House bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians as they celebrate their 26th anniversary of the Restoration to Federal Recognition on November 15, 2003.

The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians is a confederation of 27 tribes which originally ranged from Northern California to Southern Washington. In 1954, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians were one of many tribes whose federal status was terminated by Congress, and all their lands were taken away. The Siletz reservation, which once exceeded 1.1 million acres was completely gone, and the confederation was no longer recognized.

While nothing could destroy the tribes' culture and traditions that were passed from generation to generation, the lack of federal recognition and support hurt the Siletz.

In the late 1960s, a group of tribal members which recognized the severe effects that the termination was having on the tribe began to work to reverse the effects. They restored the tribal cemetery and created programs for drug and alcohol rehabilitation, job training, and other social services. As they worked to fight against the ills that termination had brought on, the group realized that it must regain its federal recognition.

After many years of intense lobbying, the tribe regained its federal recognition on November 18th, 1977 when President Carter signed an act of Congress restoring the Siletz. The Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians were the second tribe in the Untied States and the first in Oregon to have their federal recognition restored.

Since being restored, the tribe has blossomed and re-established nearly all of its institutions of government. This re-establishment of tribal government has led to better service programs and economic growth which in turn has led to greater preservation of tribal history and tradition.

With its recognition restored and tribal government re-established, the tribe began to grow, and that growth continues to this day. In 1983, a community center was built, serving as an all-purpose gathering place for tribal and non-tribal activities. 1991 brought the addition of a community health clinic which serves all members of the community, tribal and non-tribal. An administration building was developed in 1995 which provides many services to tribal members on the reservation and in eleven surrounding counties in Oregon.

In 1995 the tribe developed its biggest economic project to date, the Chinook Winds Casino and Convention Center. This venture, combined with the other tribal projects, made the tribe one of the largest employers in Lincoln County.

This growth didn't end with the creation of the casino and convention center. Since 1995, the tribe has built a Dance House, the Siletz Tribal Business Corporation, and most recently the Siletz Valley School. The school, a public charter school that serves 170 children from the surrounding community, was opened after the local school closed due to budget cuts.

As you can see, since their successful fight to regain federal recognition, the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians have been dedicated to improving the lives of their 4,000 members as well as the lives of the people of Oregon. One of the best examples of this dedication to improvement is the Siletz Tribal Charitable Contribution Fund, which has distributed more than $1.5 million to projects in Oregon.

Today it is my pleasure to honor and recognize the Confederated Tribes of Siletz Indians as they celebrate their 26th anniversary of their Restoration to Federal Recognition.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of this conference report, and I thank the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Skelton) for yielding me this time.

I am happy to see we are finally making some progress on eliminating the unfair disabled veterans tax, but it is not enough. We must keep working to ensure that no disabled veteran has to give up their hardearned military retirement pay just because they earn disability compensation.

Under the Republican plan, veterans who are more than 50 percent disabled will begin to receive a benefit that will be phased in over the next 10 years; but this still leaves two-thirds of disabled veterans behind. In Oregon, 5,500 disabled veterans are currently penalized by this sick tax. Under this compromise, 2,000 veterans will receive some sort of relief at some point over the next 10 years, but the remaining 3,500 retired disabled veterans in Oregon who are currently penalized by this sick tax will receive no benefit under this Republican compromise.

While I am pleased we were able to take this first step, we cannot stop until all of our Nation's military retirees who are disabled as a result of service to this country are able to receive the compensation they have earned and deserve. This is a promise we must keep.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the valiant efforts of Army Master Sergeant Tony Pryor, who recently received the Silver Star, the Nation's third highest military decoration, for his heroism which saved the lives of his fellow Special Forces team members.

The son of a logger from Toledo, Oregon, Tony Pryor has often been described as a fierce competitor and the epitome of a warrior. He put these skills to work last year when he single-handedly neutralized four al Qaeda soldiers while raiding a compound in Afghanistan. In doing so, he undoubtedly saved the lives of his fellow team members involved in the mission.

In his 14 years of service with the Special Forces, Master Sergeant Pryor has been on missions in Haiti, Somalia, Kuwait, and Iraq among other places.

I want to thank Master Sergeant Pryor for his heroic efforts and congratulate him on his award. He makes all of us proud. I feel safe at night knowing that he and others like him are defending this great Nation.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman for yielding me time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the motion to instruct conferees, insisting on increasing funding for the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, or IDEA.

Full funding of IDEA has been one of my priorities since I have been in Congress. When Congress first addressed

this issue in 1975, we made a commitment that we would provide children with disabilities access to a quality education, but not once in the past 28 years has Congress lived up to its obligation to fund the services it requires States and school districts to provide, despite a commitment that we would do so.

My home State of Oregon, like so many States across this country, is suffering from tremendous budget shortfalls. When the Federal Government does not pay its share, the remaining costs just do not go away. The States and school districts are forced to pick up the additional costs, putting additional strain on our education funding.

In 2003, we appropriated $8.9 billion for Part B of IDEA. While this is a small increase over past years, it is still leaving States and local school districts with an unfunded Federal mandate of over $10 billion. That is $10 billion that our States and school districts could be spending to alleviate State budget crises, reduce class sizes and build and modernize our schools.

Funding IDEA is not just about educating disabled students, it is about relieving the school funding crises that States across this Nation are facing.

It is high time we renew our commitment to all of our Nation's children and pay our fair share of the cost of IDEA. I urge my colleagues to support funding for IDEA and support the DeLauro motion to instruct conferees. This is a promise the Federal Government made. This is a promise, for the sake of our children, we need to keep.

Mr. Speaker, today I am introducing a petition to force a vote on legislation to extend unemployment benefits as a triage effort to tide people over until we address the underlying problem behind high unemployment rates: the U.S. economy's job losses.

This country has lost 3.2 million private sector jobs in the last 3 years. It is not that Americans are not looking for work, it is that the jobs are just not there.

In addition to providing a safety net to individuals, we need to focus on creating an environment allowing the private sector to grow and create these desperately needed jobs. Not only do unemployment benefits provide a level of security to families, unemployment benefits also help stimulate our local economies. When people do not have spending power, businesses hurt.

Last week 11,000 Oregonians exhausted their benefits, and that number is going to continue to grow unless this Congress acts. This deprives our State's local economy of $3 million every week in stimulus. Unemployment benefits are intended as a safety net to bridge people from one job to the next. I urge my colleagues to join me in signing this discharge petition.

Mr. Speaker, when Americans think about hunger, we usually think about mass starvation in faraway countries. But hunger too often lurks in our own back yards.

In the United States, over 33 million people live in households where people have to skip meals or eat less to make ends meet. In many homes in my State of Oregon, an estimated 720,000 people ate meals from emergency food boxes at least once last year.

Children comprise nearly 40 percent of those receiving emergency food, yet this administration is considering making changes to the verification process for the free and reduced-price school meals that could eliminate more eligible low-income children.

Today, four of my Oregon colleagues and I sent a letter to Secretary of Agriculture Ann Veneman asking her to reconsider making such costly changes to the system until we better understand the potential consequences of these changes.

It is my hope that the administration will continue to work to remedy the hunger crisis in our Nation without using costly and ineffective measures that will impede our children's access to nutritious and low- cost school meals that they need to grow and learn. I am committed to finding a solution to the problem, and I ask my colleagues to come together and find effective solutions and show that hunger does indeed have a cure.

Mr. Speaker, I want to be fair, and that is what this motion is all about, being fair to the working men and women of this United States.

I rise in strong opposition to the proposed rollbacks to protect overtime protection for American workers and to encourage my colleagues to support this motion to instruct conferees.

The language in the House-passed bill cheats working men and women of America out of just compensation for an honest day's work. The intent of overtime pay is to protect certain employees by establishing a 40- hour work week. It is an incentive to treat employees with dignity and fairness. I think most Members would agree with me that the vast majority of employers take great pains to protect their employees because they recognize the employees' ability to directly affect a business bottom line, but a few employers do not.

An empty promise for comp time at an undetermined time with no meaningful enforcement is not an incentive to protect workers. It creates hardships for working families in scheduling child care, it means a loss of income, and it is a cut in pay. That is what we have to remember. It is a cut in pay.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for yielding me this time. I rise today in strong support of the Kind motion to instruct conferees.

Let me just say a couple of words about instructing conferees. I have heard that it does not make any difference. Well, in fact, it does make a difference. The conferees do pay attention when this body, the majority of this body, says it is important, please pay attention to rural health care, the reimbursement rate, and the fact that our hospitals are closing.

Across Oregon, seniors tell me their top concern is the high cost of prescription drugs and the lack of coverage for these lifesaving medicines under the Medicare program. I believe it is time for us to pass a bill that will give relief to seniors, but that bill cannot neglect the needs of rural Medicare beneficiaries.

Limited access to care is a growing problem for those who live in rural areas, particularly Medicare beneficiaries who may have to drive great distances to receive care. In Oregon, a recent study showed that 55 percent of primary care physicians no longer accept Medicare patients or limit the services they provide to those patients. For many physicians in rural communities, their practices are dependent on Medicare patients, and yet they do not receive fair payments for their services. Rural providers are consistently hurt by lower reimbursement rates. This motion instructs conferees to include the best of the rural provisions in both the House and the Senate bills and would improve reimbursement rates for rural physicians.

Rural hospitals are also being hit by disparities in Medicare payments. You have heard it before and I will say it again. In 25 years, more than 470 rural hospitals have closed. Many are now in danger of being forced to shut their doors. Currently, hospitals receive full inflation payments for in-patient and outpatient services. The House-passed prescription drug bill would reduce hospital payment updates for the next 3 years, costing hospitals an estimated $12 billion. If we thought we saw a lot of hospitals close in the last 25 years, we are going to see a lot more close in the next few years if we do that.

This cut would be devastating to our hospitals, particularly, again, to those in rural areas. If we are serious about modernizing the Medicare program, we must ensure that we fairly and adequately represent rural seniors.

Mr. Speaker, I urge my colleagues to support this important motion to instruct conferees and assure that our rural Medicare beneficiaries receive the quality health care that they deserve.

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good friend for yielding time to me.

I rise today in support of the substitute to H.R. 7. This bill permits taxpayers who do not itemize deductions on their tax returns to deduct up to $250 in charitable donations, which is a good thing. It permits tax-free charitable contributions from IRAs, another good thing to do. It increases the amount corporations may contribute to charity, a good thing to do, and it reduces the administrative expenses that foundations may count towards a required charitable contribution, a good thing to do. This bill also cuts in half the current excise tax on foundations' investment, a good thing to do.

Charitable organizations provide life-enhancing programs that Oregonians and Americans would otherwise do without: soup kitchens, food pantries, health care clinics, domestic violence shelters. The list is endless. These organizations make the lives of millions of Americans a little better and a little easier. This bill helps charities carry out their missions.

It lessens the tax burden on charitable trusts, will allow more money to be focused on helping people. Providing tax incentives to individuals and corporations will encourage giving to charity. These are both great and noble goals.

However, these tax incentives come at a cost, and given the current budget outlook, Congress should show fiscal responsibility by passing a bill with an offset provision for the cost. This substitute does that by simply stopping abusive tax shelter schemes. So we get two good things out of this.

First of all, we are going to close loopholes in the current tax law, and we are going to give charitable organizations incentives, and we can make this a revenue-neutral bill by doing both of those. At a time when our budget deficit is out of control, this offset provision is imperative.

The Democratic substitute allows us to encourage charitable giving and stop tax shelter schemes at the same time. Both good things to do.

I urge my colleagues to vote yes to help charitable organizations and yes to stopping abusive tax shelters.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time. I wish to thank the Committee on Rules for the work they have done in bringing us an open rule for the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act so we can all openly debate this bill.

I would also like to thank the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley), the chairman of the committee; the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), the ranking member; the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus), the subcommittee chairman; the gentleman from Vermont (Mr. Sanders); the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Moore); the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert); the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette); and all of the others that worked so hard on this legislation. And particularly the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus). I do not know how many meetings he held, but we held more meetings on this piece of legislation than any other piece of legislation I have had since I have been here.

Five years ago, I was at a meeting where we were talking about consumer credit and credit reports and what that meant to people, and I started hearing stories about identity theft. That is when I first introduced this bill and got interested in this. Very recently, I was at a meeting with some technology people, and we were talking about a bunch of other things. I gave a little spiel, and when I got through I had mentioned in my opening remarks some talk about identity theft. The rest of the conversation was about identity theft and the number of people that either had it happen to them or knew someone that had had it happen to them and talked about how awful it was to get through the process.

What we have before us today is a bill that will help prevent identity theft, and help people get through the

process a lot easier. It has more consumer protections than any piece of legislation that I have seen since I have been here. This bill is a bipartisan effort, and the final product is something we can all be proud of.

I did have one amendment which was not granted a waiver by the Committee on Rules. This amendment would have increased criminal penalties for identity thieves. I felt it was germane to the underlying legislation, to stem the tide of identity theft. While I am disappointed the amendment will not be considered today, I look forward to working with the Committee on the Judiciary and drafting legislation that will put more teeth into our laws to punish those criminals who prey on our Nation's consumers.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the Committee on Rules and the Committee on Financial Services for the fine work they have done on the Fair and Accurate Credit Transaction Act. I urge Members to support both the rule and final passage.

Mr. Chairman, in August of 2001, a constituent of mine had her purse stolen, an unfortunate incident that caused her some initial annoyance, but one she quickly forgot after doing all the responsible things like filing a police report, cancelling her credit cards, notifying the major credit bureaus of the theft. She took those responsible steps and put it behind her.

She took those steps and put it behind her. Two years later when she was called about a new computer being delivered to her home, a computer she never ordered, she decided to investigate what was going on, and what she found out was that there were seven credit cards being used in her name and two cell phones, cell phones and cards that she had never requested or never seen.

Since that time, this woman has spent many hours on the phone with e- mails and research trying to clean up her credit files and protect herself from future theft. She said to me she feels like a ball in a pinball machine, being constantly bounced around from agency to agency, from credit bureau to credit bureau.

At one point a Portland police officer actually suggested to her that it might be easier to her if she would actually change her legal identity and her name. That would be easier than trying to prevent future theft and trying to clean up the damage it caused.

I want to tell my colleagues something is wrong with a system when a law enforcement official suggests that a victim change her identity to prevent it from being stolen. Unfortunately, this experience I have described has become all too common. Identity theft is a national epidemic, the fastest-growing white collar crime in America.

Thankfully, the legislation before us today has serious and effective provisions to prevent identity theft from ever happening in the first place and, if it should, to make it easier to clean it up. Much of the bill before us today is a result of years of effort by the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. LaTourette) and myself. I am proud to have this legislation before the House today.

The FACT Act is a bipartisan bill that contains landmark consumer legislation. There are a lot of people that I have to thank, all of the cosponsors, certainly the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Oxley), the chair; the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Bachus), the subcommittee chair; the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Frank), ranking member; and all of the others that worked so hard on this. But I would also like to thank the staffs of both the minority and majority staff who worked incredibly hard on this. I also want to thank John Prible from my staff who worked hard on this, Travis Brower from my office and former staffers Josh Raymond and Tom Moore.

Just a few important provisions to protect against identity theft include free annual credit reports to empower consumers, national fraud alerts to protect against the issuance of fraudulent credit, a red flag system to provide our financial institutions with the latest guidance on new identity theft fads. It provides a summary of rights for victims of identity theft. It allows consumers to block all information resulting from identity theft. Consumers can obtain their credit scores and indicators to educate consumers, protection for consumers for their sensitive medical information. These are just a few of the many consumer protections provided in this legislation.

I believe that the provisions in this legislation will go a long ways towards helping our consumers fight identity theft. This legislation is long overdue, and I urge all of my colleagues to support this bill and help protect American consumers against the threat of identity theft. Please support this legislation to help our consumers and protect against identity theft.