Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to stand before this body in support of the conference report, the first major step in providing timely, high-quality health care to the veterans who so selflessly served this great Nation. As a physician, veteran, and member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, it was an honor to have served on the conference committee.

Mr. Speaker, a corrosive culture has been allowed to exist within the Veterans Affairs bureaucracy for far too long and to the detriment of our veterans. The most important thing this bill does is give the veterans who are experiencing long wait times or live more than 40 miles from the nearest VA facility a choice. These veterans will now be able to obtain a veterans choice card, which will allow them to seek care in the private sector. Only by forcing the VA to compete will we achieve the cultural change that is required in how they serve veterans.

I have met with many physicians in recent weeks, and the desire to help our veterans is stronger than ever. Hospitals and physicians, alike, are ready and willing to care for veterans, helping to address a crisis created by VA mismanagement.

Moving forward, this report creates a process by which we can make significant strides toward accountability, by giving the VA Secretary the ability to fire senior employees who fail to do their jobs and ensuring that there will be swift, harsh penalties for knowingly misreporting or falsifying information.

This agreement will also improve educational benefits for veterans and their dependents.

As the founder and cochair of the House Invisible Wounds Caucus along with my friend Tim Walz, I am pleased this report includes a provision to extend an important pilot program intended to help veterans with traumatic brain injuries for 3 more years.

The negotiations were tough, but I know the final product will have a very positive impact on the lives of our veterans, and I would like to thank the House and Senate VA committee staffs for all their late nights and hard work they put into this toward this worthy goal.

Mr. Speaker, I applaud the chairmen, Miller and Sanders, for their leadership throughout this process, along with Ranking Member Michaud and Senator Burr.

I urge all of my colleagues to support this report.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4983, the Strengthening Transparency in Higher Education Act.

With the cost of a college education increasing, and outstanding student loan debt now at a staggering $1.2 trillion, it is more important than ever for students and their families to have the necessary information to make informed decisions about their educational pursuits.

This legislation empowers students and their families by improving the dissemination of key information about colleges and universities through a consumer-tested college dashboard.

This bill coordinates and streamlines information from multiple Federal agencies to assist students in comparing schools to determine which will best suit their unique needs.

The only college completion rates currently available to students and their families are for the traditional, first-time, full-time student. At East Tennessee State University in my hometown, only about 60 percent of the students fit this description, leaving a significant portion of students not represented by the data.

Completion rates for other groups of students, such as veterans and Pell Grant recipients, are included in the college dashboard to ensure that this information is representative of all students.

Surprisingly, despite spending approximately $32 billion each year to provide Pell Grants to over 9 million students, we have little information about the educational outcomes for these students. By taking a more thorough look at the results this program is producing, we can improve the likelihood of student success.

In addition to providing students and parents with better information, this

bill will give us new tools to help strengthen the Pell Grants program, while ensuring it is a good investment for taxpayers.

To ensure that resource is utilized, students will be provided links to the college dashboard for each prospective school they look at, thus providing this important information to them at the pinnacle of their college search.

I thank the chairwoman and the ranking member on this bipartisan legislation, and I encourage its support.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of the conference report for H.R. 803, the Workforce Innovation and Opportunity Act.

Today, 9.5 million Americans are out of work, despite 4.6 million job openings. As our economy changes, so too will the jobs available, and we will have seen more and more less-skilled workers and jobs being replaced by skills-intensive jobs. We have to make sure our workforce can keep up, or we will lose these jobs to countries that prioritize the development of these skills.

H.R. 803 works to close the skills gap that prevents our workers from securing a job in a number of ways. The bill makes the job training system easier to use, and at one point, there were 40 different jobs training programs in the Federal Government whose missions often overlapped and left jobseekers confused.

This legislation consolidates 15 ineffective or duplicative programs and makes the job of navigating a complicated bureaucracy easier for jobseekers.

We reform workforce training boards to ensure that a majority of board members are from the business community--the job creators who know best what skills they need in their workforce.

Madam Speaker, this legislation is a good first step to helping the unemployed, particularly those who have been out of work for many, many months. I encourage my colleagues to support this conference report and help our friends and neighbors get back to work.

Mr. Speaker, today I want to recognize the dedication of the Wolf Creek Bridge in Cocke County, Tennessee to Mr. Michael Gibbs.

The Wolf Creek Bridge is one of East Tennessee's infrastructural treasures. Located in Cocke County, Tennessee, the original bridge was completed in February 1928 for a meager cost of $119,102. Having been through a series of repairs throughout its time, the Wolf Creek Bridge underwent its first major rehabilitation in April 2012 under the direction of the Tennessee Department of Transportation. The Wolf Creek Bridge is now larger than it has ever been at 30.8 feet across with lanes widened to 12 feet and 3 foot shoulders on either side. Thanks to this rehabilitation, this bridge, which has been an integral part of the region since its induction in 1928, is now better than it has ever been before.

June 27, 2014 marked a new day in the history of the Wolf Creek Bridge, wherein the bridge was dedicated to one of the many soldiers from Tennessee that has given his life to the service of our nation and renamed Veterans Pass in Memory of Michael Gerald Gibbs. Michael G. Gibbs, a native of Del Rio, Tennessee, served in the United States Navy during the Vietnam War. On April 25, 1967 he made the ultimate sacrifice for the United States of America and was among the first casualties from Cocke County, Tennessee. His name on the Wolf Creek Bridge marks a significant union between those who have served our nation on the front lines through the military and those that have provided the necessary infrastructure and community support to keep America strong at its core.

It is an honor to see the dedication of the Wolf Creek Bridge to the memory of Mr. Michael Gibbs, a true representation of the volunteer spirit.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to associate my remarks with my friend, Mr. Cohen, from Memphis.

Today, I rise and recognize Judge John Wilson of Tennessee's First District for his commitment to serving the Third Judicial District of Tennessee and our Nation. His dedication to freedom, liberty, justice, and many other principles that make our country great is both a testament to his character and an achievement to be proud of.

Judge Wilson was born and raised in east Tennessee. He graduated from East Tennessee State University, located in my hometown of Johnson City, Tennessee, with his undergraduate degree, and graduated law school at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville.

Since his graduation from law school, Judge Wilson has served in the United States Air Force as an assistant district attorney and, most recently, as a circuit court judge for the Third Judicial District of Tennessee for 35 years, representing Greene, Hamblen, Hancock, and Hawkins Counties.

Judge Wilson would be the first to say that he could not have done it without his lovely wife, Nancy, who has been by his side for 48 years. I am proud to call both of them my friends.

I thank Judge Wilson for his service to our community, our State, and our Nation and wish him all the best in his well-deserved retirement.

Mr. Speaker, it is my pleasure to support the designation of June 20, 2014 as American Eagle Day and celebrate the recovery and restoration of the bald eagle, the national symbol of the United States. On June 20, 1782, the eagle was designated as the national emblem of the U.S. by the Founding Fathers at the Second Continental Congress.

The bald eagle is the central image of the Great Seal of the United States and is displayed in the official seal of many branches and departments of the Federal Government.

The bald eagle is an inspiring symbol of the spirit of freedom and the democracy of the

United States. Since the founding of the Nation, the image, meaning and symbolism of the eagle have played a significant role in art, music, history, commerce, literature, architecture and culture of the United States. The bald eagle's habitat only exists in North America.

I hope my colleagues will join in celebrating June 20, 2014 as American Eagle Day, which marks the recovery and restoration of the bald eagle.

Mr. Speaker I thank the chairman.

I rise in support of H.R. 4810, the Veteran Access to Care Act.

As a physician, veteran, and member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, words cannot express my outrage over the VA's blatant disregard for the lives of those who served their country honorably and earned timely access to quality care.

I have helped run a hospital and am fully aware of how wait times and performance goals work. When the VA set a 14-day goal for scheduling appointments, it should have become immediately apparent that this was unattainable and could only be realized by cooking the books. Even in the private sector, a 14-day wait time is quite ambitious.

This bipartisan legislation offers a simple solution to a deadly problem. The needs of the vast majority of VA patients across the country can and will continue to be met through the existing VA system. But it is outrageous that veterans could die awaiting for care that is readily available in the private sector, so this is a commonsense solution and, frankly, the least we should do to help our veterans.

As I said last night in the committee hearing, there is something the VA could do today to change the culture of the VA. If you asked someone who works on a VA campus where do they work, Mr. Speaker, they will say I work for the VA. They should say, the answer to that question should be, I work and serve veterans.

I applaud the work that Chairman Miller, Ranking Member Michaud, and the committee staff have undertaken to hold the VA accountable.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today as the proud sponsor of H.R.

503, the National Desert Storm and Desert Shield War Memorial Act.

In the previous debate we heard just a moment ago about tyranny and the oppression of human rights, this bill honors those who fought this and freed an entire country--Kuwait.

In having just celebrated Memorial Day, it is fitting that the House today is considering legislation which would establish a monument to honor those who served on active duty in support of Operation Desert Storm or Operation Desert Shield.

2014 marks 23 years since the first U.S. casualty in Operation Desert Shield, the first phase of one of the largest military operations in our country's history.

The seeds for this conflict were sewn on August 2, 1990, when Saddam Hussein ruthlessly invaded Kuwait and imprisoned the people. In less than 24 hours, he dominated nearly 30 percent of the world's oil supply, before setting his sights on Saudi Arabia.

Recognizing Saudi Arabia's important role in the region, President George Herbert Walker Bush and a coalition of 34 supporting countries launched Operation Desert Shield, the deployment of combat forces to Saudi Arabia, and ordered Hussein to remove Iraqi troops from Kuwait by January 15, 1991.

With Kuwait still occupied after the deadline passed, over a half- million United States armed servicemembers led coalition forces in the liberation of Kuwait: Operation Desert Storm.

Of the roughly 600,000 American troops who were deployed in both Operation Desert Shield and Desert Storm, 294 died in theater, of which 148 were killed in action.

The United States currently lacks a national memorial dedicated to the valor and sacrifices made by those members of our Armed Forces who protected two of our key regional allies. This sacrifice was not just borne by those who deployed, but also by their families on the home front.

Believing that we should have an enduring monument to their service in the Nation's capital, I introduced the National Desert Storm and Desert Shield War Memorial Act. This bipartisan legislation would authorize the National Desert Storm Memorial Association to establish a National Desert Storm and Desert Shield War Memorial on Federal lands within the District of Columbia.

It is important to note that no Federal funds will be spent to build this memorial. All funds will be raised privately by the National Desert Storm Memorial Association.

I will include letters of support from veterans service organizations such as AMVETS, the American Legion, the Air Force Association, the National Guard Association of the United States, and Blinded Veterans of America.

AMVETS Draft Resolution 14-08

Subject: Support the National Desert Storm Memorial

Source: National Headquarters

Whereas, on Aug. 2, 1990 Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait and

set in motion a chain of events that would impact America and

the rest of the world forever; and,

Whereas, on January 16th 1991 Operation Desert Storm was

launched following Saddam Hussein's refusal to withdraw his

Iraqi forces from Kuwait; and,

Whereas, there were 293 American men and women who made the

ultimate sacrifice in extracting the Iraqis and liberating

Kuwait; and

Whereas, in 2011 we celebrated the 20th Anniversary of this

historical conflict and yet there remains no national

memorial to honor the brave men and women from the United

States who served and sacrificed in that war; now therefore,

be it resolved: That AMVETS do everything in its power to

support the passage of HR 503, National Desert Storm and

Desert Shield War Memorial Act.

I would especially like to thank a couple of people, such as Jeff Miller, my friend from Hendersonville, North Carolina, who introduced me to Scott Stump and his colleagues at the National Desert Storm Memorial Association, for the legwork they have done in support of H.R. 503. Without their efforts, we wouldn't be standing here today. I also would like to thank Lieutenant Colonel Norbert from Canada, who is also in the audience today.

I would also like to express my appreciation to Chairman Hastings and Chairman Bishop for their assistance in moving this legislation to the House floor.

I encourage my colleagues to support this legislation and to honor the service of those who served in these operations.

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

I thank the chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 10, the Success and Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Act, and I am going to sound like a recording because you are going to hear a lot of the same themes in this.

Today, there are an estimated 1 million students on waiting lists to attend public charter schools. These students and their families believe that their educational needs are not being met by their current schools.

While many of our public schools are doing a great job, too many others are failing our children. These kids deserve the opportunity to receive a top-notch education, and they cannot wait as we work to improve these underperforming schools. They don't have the time.

Public charter schools provide students with the opportunity to escape underperforming schools, while also giving parents more control over their children's education. To ensure more access to these innovative institutions, the Success and Opportunity through Quality Charter Schools Act supports the replication or expansion of existing high-quality charter schools.

H.R. 10 streamlines and modernizes our charter schools program, providing our Nation's public charter schools with the flexibility needed to encourage innovation at the State and local levels.

H.R. 10 supports the sharing of best practices between charter and traditional public schools. In this way, all public school students, not just charter school students, benefit from the innovation at these institutions.

I am proud of the educators and students in my home State of Tennessee and of their accomplishments in improving education in our State. Since 2003, Tennessee has increased its high school graduation rate by 17 points to 87 percent. This is commendable, but it is not enough. We can and should do more, and charter schools must be part of the discussion.

Since 2002, Tennessee has opened more than 45 charter schools, giving nearly 12,000 students the opportunity to attend these innovative institutions.

Tennessee's public charter schools serve 87 percent low-income and 96 percent minority students from economically disadvantaged areas, providing school choice to the students who need it the most.

Just like Tennessee, we, as a Nation, must fully embrace all of the tools available, including charter schools, to ensure our students' success.

Mr. Chairman, I spent 24 years in the public school system. I never attended a private school. The opportunity for students like me who are first generation students--college students--to be

able to get a great, basic public education is really the future of our country. I think our very future depends on that.

Also, while I am here, I want to thank both the chairman, Ranking Member Miller, Mr. Polis, and the rest of the committee for circling around this extremely important piece of legislation because students in the first or second or third grade cannot afford a failing school. They have to be allowed to go into a school where they can be successful.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I strongly urge my colleagues to support

Mr. Speaker, today I hope to raise awareness of lymphedema, a debilitating disease for which no cure has yet been developed.

Lymphedema is a blockage of lymph vessels that causes an accumulation of fluid, protein, and other cellular waste. This results in a swelling of the body in places where the blockage occurs. Though lymphedema can be passed down genetically, it most frequently occurs after surgical procedures to remove damaged lymph nodes or vessels. Often it is a tragic side-effect to cancer treatments, the highest risk occurring in breast and prostate cancer patients.

Doctors can screen for lymphedema using a number of diagnostic tools, and early detection is important to minimize the effects of this disease. Lymphedema, sadly, is not curable, but it is treatable through compression, specially designed exercises, or, in some cases, surgery.

One of my constituents, Jennifer Onks Hovatter of Johnson City, lost her husband Thomas to complications arising from lymphedema in 2007. Every year around June 18th--the day that Thomas passed away--Jennifer holds the Thomas Hovatter Lymphedema Awareness Day in memory of her husband. This year, Lymphedema Awareness Day is June 21.

Jennifer's efforts to raise public recognition of this disease--which have been reported on by the Associated Press--led the Tennessee legislature to declare that the third week of June each year to be ``Lymphedema Awareness Week.''

I applaud Jennifer for her tireless work to bring awareness to lymphedema, and encourage all Americans to learn more about this condition.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the House Republican budget.

Today, our national debt exceeds $17.5 trillion. Mr. Chairman, that is a blueprint for decline--more than $55,000 for every man, woman, and child in America. If we fail to address this mounting debt now, our children and our grandchildren will inherit an America that will be poorer, less free, and provide fewer opportunities.

To address this looming crisis, Republicans propose balancing the Federal budget in 10 years. Most Americans don't realize that discretionary spending has decreased 4 consecutive years, a tremendous accomplishment spurred on by House Republicans.

Now we must show the same resolve to tackle our largest drivers of debt, mandatory programs, including Medicaid, Medicare, Social Security, and SNAP. We can achieve balance without reducing overall spending--let me say that again--we can achieve balance without reducing overall spending by simply slowing the rate of growth at which spending increases. We must spend hardworking taxpayer dollars smarter.

Mr. Chairman, I am Medicare age, and I realize that for every dollar that we pay in in premiums, we get $3 out in benefits. This is clearly not sustainable.

As a physician, I would like to commend Chairman Ryan for his continued efforts to save and strengthen Medicare. We must act to protect seniors' access to medical care before the Medicare trust fund becomes insolvent in 2026, a short time from now.

This proposal achieves that goal while ensuring those Americans 55 and older experience absolutely no change.

I urge my colleagues to support this very conservative budget.

Mr. Speaker, this bill would repeal ObamaCare's mandate on employers to provide insurance to all employees working at least 30 hours per week and would instead restore the traditional 40- hour standard. Everywhere I go, I hear concerns about the lack of jobs and the need for job creation. Tennessee's unemployment rate is still near 7 percent. We need to be doing everything possible to encourage employers to not only create jobs, but to maintain current jobs.

That is why the 30-hour standard makes no sense. Employers are already struggling to make their budgets work in the stagnant Obama economy. We all know how the employers are forced to respond: by cutting hours or hiring fewer workers. There is concrete evidence this is already happening, not just in the private sector. In my own hometown, Johnson, Tennessee, where I was mayor before I came here, the city school system been forced to keep approximately 200 employees, including substitute teachers, below the 129 hours a month.

This hurts the families that count on that income and the schoolchildren that benefit from the efforts of these adults.

President Obama's case for defending this flawed law is built on a false premise: that there is no other way to help individuals who cannot afford health insurance or who have been affected by a catastrophic illness or disease.

Mr. Speaker, I have spent my entire adult life as a physician taking care of people from all walks of life. I want every American to have access to an affordable health care plan, and I have worked since I arrived in Congress to develop patient-centered solutions to help people afford health care, like H.R. 3121, the American Health Care Reform Act.

There are ways to reach this goal without creating massive new bureaucracies, spending $2 trillion, weakening the doctor-patient relationship, or increasing premiums for millions of hardworking Americans, but the President won't even engage in a conversation. So, in the meantime, we must do everything we can to protect the American people from this law. That is why I encourage my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

Mr. Speaker, this physician rises in strong support of H.R. 4015, the SGR repeal. This bicameral, bipartisan compromise will preserve seniors' access to needed medical care and give physicians certainty about how Medicare will pay them for their services.

This bill also lays the groundwork for a gradual transition to a reimbursement system that rewards value instead of volume.

The House, by passing H.R. 4015, will take a big step toward the permanent repeal of a flawed payment formula that has hampered physicians since 1997, but we can't allow the process to stop here.

I encourage our Senate colleagues to pass a bill as soon as possible, so that we can move into conference and find a mechanism to repeal this bill.

I would like to thank the members and staff of the committees for their tireless efforts on this bill, particularly my friend Dr. Mike Burgess, who has long championed this reform.

I encourage my colleagues to support H.R. 4015. Mr. Speaker, the American Medical Association represents less than 20 percent of the physicians in this country.

Madam Speaker, I thank the gentlelady for yielding to me.

I rise in support of the SIMPLE Fairness Act and a level playing field for all Americans.

In the span of about 7 months, the Obama administration has taken action twice to provide big businesses with relief from the President's disastrous health care law. Working families, however, are still being forced to comply with the individual mandate.

Over the last year, President Obama's broken promises on health care become almost too numerous to count. Americans were told that if they liked their health care plan, they could keep it. Tell that to the 82,000 Tennesseans who were forced out of their coverage by ObamaCare.

Americans were told that ObamaCare would lower the cost of insurance. Explain that to the 11 million people that CMS has determined will have their premiums increase.

We were told by the Democratic leader that ObamaCare would create jobs. I invite her to have a conversation with the workers at Mountain States Health Alliance in my district who lost their jobs. Even the CBO agrees that this law is discouraging work.

Throughout the implementation of ObamaCare, the one thing the President has held firm on is that working families must buy insurance--or else. He has promised a veto on this commonsense legislation simply because it delays individual mandate penalties for 1 year.

Here in the people's House, we should stand for their interests and treat people the same as big businesses. It is only fair.

Madam Speaker, I would argue that if this bill is doing so well, why would only 34 percent of the people in this country approve of it?

I urge my colleagues to support this bill.