Floor Statements

Mr. Chair, today, the House will pass yet another bill that weakens important environmental laws. I will vote against this legislation--H.R. 2641--which if enacted would gut the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). The NEPA process requires federal agencies to go through a public assessment of the environmental impacts of certain proposed federal actions. As part of this, it mandates the consideration of alternatives to those actions. The process can identify alternatives that are often less costly with fewer impacts to the environment.

H.R. 2641 undermines this important process, by placing restrictions on alternatives that can be considered, and allowing parties with vested interests in projects to prepare environmental review documents, creating potential conflicts of interest. It could also force agencies to approve projects if review and analysis cannot be completed before arbitrary deadlines.

The claimed goal of this bill is to help projects--including infrastructure projects--to move forward more quickly. The NEPA process, however, is not the reason for project delays. The reason is a lack of investment from the federal government. At the Army Corps of Engineers, there is a $60 billion backlog of authorized water resources projects that were successfully approved under NEPA, but have not been built due to lack of funding. At the same time, our roads and bridges are in disrepair, not due to NEPA, but because the federal government is short of resources, with the Highway Trust Fund projected to need $100 billion in additional revenue over the next six years just to stay solvent.

NEPA's positive impact has been unquestionable--it has been one of the nation's most important environmental laws, ensuring careful decision making and the right of the public to participate in planning efforts that would directly impact their communities. I will be disappointed to see H.R. 2641 pass, which will only limit the public's participation, increase confusion, and undermine responsible agency reviews.

Mr. Speaker, this is the March Madness season on Capitol Hill, when we in Congress greet thousands of our constituents, many who are here to talk about transportation. It is something that every one of our constituents cares about.

Yesterday, I was able to greet hundreds of cyclists from around the country, and then leaders of America's counties; already this morning I've visited with people from the preservation community and a large delegation from Oregon.

Next week, I will start all over again with the American Public Transit Association. These people are all desperate for a 6-year, fully funded transportation bill, with stable, non-general funded money. They are standing on the edge of a cliff due to Congress' refusal--I almost said inability--to provide necessary funds, if not to do it right, at least to do it adequately.

I came to Congress shortly after the Clinton administration and Congress last raised the gas tax. That was 21 years ago, when gasoline was $1.08 a gallon--and I wonder if Barack had even met Michelle--and there it has remained for 21 years.

Due to inflation and fuel economy increases, the average cost per mile that the American motorist pays to the Federal transportation program has been cut in half.

I went on the Budget, and the Ways and Means Committees for the last 8 years in order to deal with this issue. Frankly, I am tired of waiting. I introduced a gas tax increase, phased in over 3 years, to fully fund a 6-year reauthorization. I was pleased to be joined by friends supporting my bill's introduction--by the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the AFL-CIO, American

Trucking Association, AAA, contractors, transit, local government, environmentalists, road builders.

I find it somewhat ironic that people say this will be a heavy lift, because there is little support for it. When Chairman Camp offered $150 billion last week in his tax reform bill or President Obama suggested $300 billion, where was their broad base of support? Maybe that is why both proposals were declared dead on arrival in the newspapers the next day.

I had a chance to make my case for both short and long-term funding last week in an amazing conference on America's infrastructure challenges at Harvard Business School. After my presentation, I was followed by the president of the AFL-CIO, Rich Trumka, and the president of the U.S. Chamber, Tom Donohue, who said--you know, they don't agree on much--but they both agree that it is time to raise the gas tax.

One of the best examples of leadership was Bill Graves, the president of the American Trucking Association, who has been eloquent and forceful, including when he was Governor of Kansas and raised the gas tax, saying his industry wants their taxes raised.

The AAA issued a strong statement in support, even though their members are not wild about it, because it is needed.

We run out of money September 30 because we have drained the trust fund. Therefore, the United States Department of Transportation is going to stop shipping out money this summer, which means that we are going to start having local governments holding back on their contracts this spring.

While the truckers and AAA have taken a strong leadership stand--not because it is popular, but because it is needed--I hope we in Congress will stop stalling or dealing with short-term fixes. Let's take a stand to raise the gas tax, have an adult conversation with the American public about how to pay for rebuilding and renewing our communities, put hundreds of thousands of people to work, to improve the safety and morning commute for all Americans.

Madam Speaker, it is a pleasure for me to follow my good friend, Dr. Phil Roe, on the floor because we spent last weekend-- speaking of health care--along with Mr. McDermott--in Houston, Texas, at a fabulous conference by the nonpartisan Commonwealth Fund to be able to deal meaningfully with health care problems and bring people together on a bipartisan basis to discuss them.

I know some things we have to do and have got to come to the floor to repeal this 50 times, but I would hope that, sooner rather than later, we reach a point where we can focus on things that bring Americans together, not divide them, something that will improve the quality of health care and actually has nothing to do with spending money, new mandates, or ObamaCare.

I am referring to the legislation that I am pleased to have cosponsored with my good friend, Dr. Roe, H.R. 1173, the Personalize Your Care bill. It has over 50 bipartisan cosponsors. It would enable, for the first time, to provide voluntary consultation on advanced care planning for Medicare and Medicaid.

Every 5 years or when somebody becomes first eligible, it would provide grants to establish and expand programs for physician-ordered life sustaining treatment. It would require that certified electronic health records could display current advanced directives and physician orders for sustaining treatment.

Bear in mind, right now, every day, there are people who are getting health care at their most critical vulnerable moments, at the end of life, that is not necessarily what they want.

The majority of Americans would rather spend their last hours or days surrounded by their families at home, but very few Americans actually are able to do that. They end up in an ICU, not necessarily because that is their choice, but because their choices haven't been recorded and haven't been respected.

It is fascinating to me that Dr. Billy Graham, in his recent book, talks about the Christian responsibility to spare one's family from impossible decisions like that, that it is a Christian

responsibility to have that conversation in advance, execute the appropriate papers, and make sure nobody has to guess about whether a loved one wants to be in an ICU or at home.

Dr. Bill Frist, a fellow Tennessean of my friend Dr. Roe, had an op- ed in Politico a few months ago talking about his experience. Dr. Frist was a former Republican majority leader in the Senate, but he is also a respected physician.

He is also a respected heart surgeon who has faced families in this circumstance, and he knows that they need information, that they need help, and that their wishes need to be respected.

Now, maybe instead of repealing ObamaCare the 51st or the 58th or the 100th time--legislation is not going to go any place--maybe we could take a little bit of a time out and consider the legislation that Dr. Roe and I have worked on that is not partisan, that doesn't have anything to do with ObamaCare, that would enable families in their time of need to know what their choices are and to make sure that their choices, whatever they might be, are respected, they are respected in their city, they are respected across State lines, that they protect their family, and that they get the care they want and they need as they approach end of life.

Mr. Speaker, I hope that we will find time this year from passing post office renaming and whatnot, this is a piece of legislation that could come to the floor on the suspension calendar and would make a difference for families all across America.

Thank you, Mr. Waxman. I appreciate your leadership and courtesy in permitting me to speak on this bill.

Mr. Chair, I would like to reference the comments a moment ago that somehow there isn't available large commercial carbon capture sequestration and that this is somehow a figment. As a matter of fact, in the United States today, there are seven large commercial carbon capture sequestration projects operating today. The projects at large commercial coal-fired power plants will come online in the United States and Canada this year.

Dr. Julio Friedmann, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Clean Coal at the U.S. Department of Energy, recently testified that:

First generation CCS technology is commercially available

today. You can call up a number of U.S. and international

manufacturers, and they will sell you a unit at a large scale

for capture of more than a million tons per year.

The idea that CCS technologies for coal are unavailable is simply not true. I would deeply suggest that this is one of the reasons we are having this bizarre conversation today. We are just sort of out of sync with reality.

I strongly oppose H.R. 3826. The debate on this bill is about the reality of dangerous climate change.

If you accept modern science, you cannot deny the combined weight of over 10,000 peer-reviewed, published scientific studies which tell us climate change is happening, is caused by humans, and will have extremely serious impacts. If you fight wildfires, farm, run a ski resort, or live in a low-lying coastal area, you are already living with the impacts of climate change on a daily basis.

All these studies and experiences are telling us the same thing: carbon pollution produced by human activities is warming the Earth. It is driving more extreme weather events, more heat waves and droughts, longer and more intense wildfire seasons, rising sea levels, melting permafrost, and ocean acidification.

Climate disruption is harming economic activities in my State such as agriculture and ski resorts. It is affecting the insurance industry. It is beginning to impose huge costs on those least able to bear them-- people living in the poorest and most vulnerable parts of the world.

The United States is a major contributor to climate change and it cannot be mitigated without us. We have a moral responsibility to act, but H.R. 3826 does just the opposite. It makes

the problem worse by preventing EPA from acting in the interest of the environment and our country.

Coal-fired plants are the largest single source of carbon pollution. Today, there is no limit on how much carbon pollution they can emit. That is why President Obama directed EPA to use its existing authority under the Clean Air Act to require power plants to control carbon pollution, something long overdue.

EPA has proposed a rule to require new coal plants to use available pollution control technology to capture and sequester carbon pollution. For existing coal plants, EPA is working with stakeholders to think through the best approach. EPA has not yet even issued a proposal, but industries are moving on.

In my region, a major utility made the decision on sound economics and environment to shut down a coal-powered plant.

H.R. 3826 would stop EPA from issuing any rules and allow these plants to keep emitting unlimited amounts of carbon pollution. For existing plants, the bill would be straight-out prohibition of any EPA rule from becoming effective unless Congress somehow passed a new law to implement the rule. As a practical matter, this repeals the EPA's existing authority to act.

Mr. Chairman, this bill is a dead letter. The Senate will never pass it, and even if it did, the President would veto it, as well he should. Let's spare him the agony and reject this misguided proposal now.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the gentlelady's courtesy. I have a slightly different perspective. The problem isn't FEMA. The problem is that Congress has not appropriately dealt with these issues over time.

I have spent 10, 15 years now working on flood insurance reform. This is not the last word. We are kicking the can down the road. We are putting a surcharge on other people. We are grandfathering in some of the properties that are going to get these subsidized rates and transferring it. But this money is going to run out. It is going to have to be reauthorized.

With all due respect, I think we need to look at the big picture. We have got to look at the big picture, not keep putting people back in harm's way, subsidizing people, and blaming FEMA because we don't adequately fund them and, of course, we don't want them to accurately map. We go gunnysack when that happens.

I had reservations at the time that this was too abrupt. But I am concerned that we are retreating too much on the reforms that had been made earlier, and it is going to be hard to get back, of course, until the bubble bursts, which it will.

Mr. Speaker, today, I introduced the Reduce Expenditures in Nuclear Investments Now (REIN-IN) Act of 2014. The bill would save $100 billion over the next 10 years by reducing or eliminating unnecessary nuclear weapons programs. Senator Edward J. Markey (D-MA) has introduced companion legislation in the Senate, the SANE Act.

We must significantly reduce U.S. spending on nuclear weapons, delivery systems, and related programs. Today, the United States spends more in this arena than it did at the height of the Cold War. A recent report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimates that between 2014 and 2023, the costs of the Administration's plans for nuclear forces will total $470 billion. Other estimates come close to $700 billion, which is more than the federal government will spend on education over the next five years. Worse, there are plans in the works to spend billions of dollars modernizing our nuclear stockpile of missiles, submarines, and bombers, committing us to decades more of waste.

We need to change direction.

My legislation will make the nation safer. The large number of high- alert weapons we have now leaves dangerous room for human error. For example, in August 2007, a B-52

flew cross-country while unknowingly carrying six nuclear-armed, air- launched missiles. Just last month, the Air Force had to suspended 92 launch officers--or missileers--at Malmstrom Air Force Base, MT, where a drug investigation also uncovered that missileers may have been cheating on proficiency exams. The REIN-IN Act, which is supported by over two-dozen organizations, will increase Americans' safety by cutting the number of intercontinental ballistic missiles currently on 24-hour high alert from 450 to 150.

We don't need an expensive stockpile of nuclear weapons that will never use to create a prosperous and secure society. As costs for our nation grow, there are areas where we can cut spending. The first place we should start is with our unnecessary and expensive spending on nuclear weapons that are more suited for the Cold War than the strategic challenges we face today.

I look forward to working with the President and Congress to pass the REIN-IN Act, which will not only reduce overall spending, but reprioritize investments that will actually make the United States safer, more livable, and economically secure.

Mr. Speaker, last week, I voted against three bills designed to weaken important environmental laws and roll back protections for our wilderness areas, parks, and wildlife.

Many of my constituents love Oregon's public lands and use them for hiking, hunting and fishing. They value efforts to conserve and responsibly manage these lands. H.R. 3590, the ``Sportsmen's Heritage and Recreational Enhancement Act,'' will not, however, ensure responsible management and access. Rather, it contained measures to roll back important environmental laws, to curb public engagement in management decisions and limit the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to appropriately regulate toxic lead in ammunition.

I joined a number of my colleagues in offering an amendment to H.R. 3590 to ensure the Secretary of the Interior maintains the authority to consider climate change when making decisions regarding conservation and recreational activities on public lands. I was disappointed that this amendment failed, and I will continue to use every opportunity to elevate the importance of climate change.

H.R. 2954, the misleadingly named ``Public Access and Lands Improvement Act,'' also weakens protections for wildlife conservation at treasured places like Yellowstone National Park, the Grand Tetons and Cape Hatteras.

Finally, H.R. 3964, the ``Sacramento-San Joaquin Valley Emergency Water Delivery Act,'' will do nothing to help with serious drought conditions in California and overrides state and federal protections for wildlife and water quality. The bill sets a dangerous precedent by favoring certain water interests over others, disrupting the State's ongoing efforts to bring people together to find long-term, science- based solutions to manage this severe water crisis.

Our precious natural resources and public lands face serious challenges when it comes to climate change, recreation management, and fish and wildlife conservation. Unfortunately, these bills did nothing to alleviate those problems.

Mr. Speaker, last week, during a hearing with the Deputy Director of the Office of Drug Policy, there was a moment of clarity for me. I was struck by the realization that our own office, charged with drug policy, discouraging or eliminating drug use, might well be part of the problem.

The poor witness was unable to answer my simple question, What is more dangerous, marijuana or methamphetamines? I asked, How many marijuana overdose deaths were there last year? No clear answer.

The United States does have a drug problem--make no mistake--and it appears to be getting worse: 100 people per day die of drug overdoses. About 9 of them are from heroin; 60 percent of the deaths are from prescription drugs; pharmaceuticals, over 22,000 in 2010, the most recent year we have available, almost three times higher than in 1999.

Why is the $25 billion we spend fighting drugs each year so ineffective in stopping, much less reversing, the trend? Are our policies and programs misguided? Could it be that too many of the wrong people are spending far too long in jail, wasting lives and money? The States seem to think so. They are reducing sentences and releasing prisoners. Now even the Federal Government is starting to do that as well.

I think part of the problem is that we aren't honest about the impacts and dangers. Nothing better illustrates that than the continued misclassification of marijuana under Federal law as worse than cocaine and methamphetamines. That's according to Federal law.

Is it possible that this Federal dishonesty means that people don't take drug warnings seriously? No one knows anybody who ever died from a marijuana overdose. The failed marijuana prohibition could actually make the real drug problem worse.

Since all marijuana sales are, by definition, illegal, in the shadows, the money, the income, the profits help finance a drug trade that destroys life, like heroin, cocaine, illegal prescription drugs, and methamphetamines.

How easy is it for the distributor, who has no license to lose, who never checks ID, to offer his marijuana customer something else, something worse, something more dangerous?

I fear spreading misinformation and wasting resources, arresting two- thirds of a million people for something that most Americans now think should be legal, undermines what could be an effective approach. Think for a moment. Unlike marijuana, tobacco is a highly addictive killer-- over four hundred thousand people a year die from it yet tobacco use has declined almost two-thirds in the last half century. How did that happen?

We don't arrest people who smoke. We didn't try tobacco prohibition. What we did was research. We found out the facts. We told the truth. We controlled the product. We taxed it heavily, raising the cost, especially to young people--all the steps exactly the opposite of our failed marijuana approach.

I will be clear. For me, this goes beyond issues of marijuana policy. It is a symbol of a political process that is not thoughtful, not rational on dealing with things from the national debt, to our failing infrastructure, to climate change. Isn't it time for us to face some facts, adjust some policies, and move ahead?

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to clause 1, rule I, I demand a vote on agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the Journal.

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

Mr. Speaker, Wednesday, in a congressional hearing, under oath, Michael Botticelli, the Deputy Director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy, could not answer my direct questions: What is more dangerous, methamphetamine or marijuana? How many people died from marijuana last year? He complained that people think marijuana is benign.

Well, I don't think marijuana is benign, but I can understand how people can get confused when so-called ``experts'' cannot give straight answers. Federal law says that marijuana is more dangerous than cocaine and methamphetamine, which everybody knows is a lie.

Unlike marijuana, tobacco use is falling. Unlike marijuana, we don't arrest millions of people for using tobacco. Tobacco use has been cut almost two-thirds because we have been honest about the facts.

Maybe there's a lesson for our drug policy officials: if you want to discourage marijuana use, be honest and be direct.

Mr. Speaker, before turning to the subject at hand, I really hope that people look at the CBO report that was referenced by my good friend from Pennsylvania, and you will find that the 2 million people who would no longer be working, are not going to increase unemployment. The unemployment rate will be lower. There are people who are trapped in the workforce now because they can't afford health care. The Affordable Care Act will actually enable some people to retire who want to retire or stop working a second job. Read the report and find out that this is actually a very positive signal.

But, Mr. Speaker, I am here today to reference something else that was in the newspapers. The papers are filled with scandal about the nuclear weapons program. The real scandal is not the cheating or drug use by people with their finger on the nuclear button. The scandal is that these people are there on the job at all, with these nuclear weapons; jobs and nuclear weapons that should no longer exist.

Don't get me wrong. The alleged drug use by the people who stand watch daily with a finger on the nuclear trigger, or that were cheating on their proficiency exams, is outrageous, but it is scandalous that we are frozen in time linked to a nuclear Cold War past and committed to wildly wasteful spending.

These are weapons that have never been used in 69 years, that did not deter the 9/11 attackers, and cannot help us in our major strategic challenges today. They have never been used in battle since World War II, but they have almost been used by miscalculation and mistake.

In Eric Schlosser's recent book called ``Command and Control,'' there are terrifying examples of what were termed ``broken arrows,'' nuclear mishaps.

A nuclear bomb was accidentally released over South Carolina, landing in Walter Greg's backyard, leaving a 75-foot wide, 30-foot crater, leveling his home. Luckily, it failed to trigger the nuclear explosion.

In North Carolina, a B-52 fell into a tailspin carrying two hydrogen bombs, each 250 times more powerful than Hiroshima.

There were numerous instances when our bomber fleet, which used to be on the runway idling, on alert 24/7, was prone to catching on fire while packed with nuclear bombs.

A few years ago, there was a B-52 which flew across the country unknowingly carrying six nuclear-armed air-launched missiles.

By no stretch of the imagination, do we need these 450 intercontinental ballistic missiles on alert, plus nuclear armed bombers, all on top of our nuclear submarine-based missiles? We don't need a fraction of this weaponry. At most, we need perhaps one scaled- down system. There is nobody left to deter. We are competing in Russia in the Winter Olympics right now.

A small portion of one of these delivery systems is all the nuclear deterrence we could ever possibly need. The larger and more complex the infrastructure is not just more expensive, but more prone to mistake.

We are talking about upwards of $700 billion over the next 10 years in operations, modernization, new systems, new nuclear submarines. It is outrageous. It is dangerous. Let me put that in context. $750 billion is more than the Federal Government will spend on education in its entirety in the next 5 years.

It is time for Congress and the American people to put an end to this.

Mr. Speaker, we are used to a world with gloomy news regarding the jarring impact and threats of climate change.

We are experiencing wildfires in the Pacific Northwest this winter. The snowpack is a small percentage of normal, which is not just bad news for skiers now; it means lower river levels in the spring that will affect hydropower production, irrigation for farmers, and further damage to ever-troubled fish runs. California is experiencing its worst drought in 500 years--not really manmade, as some of my Republican California colleagues claim. Although it is interesting, as pointed out in the L.A. Times yesterday in an editorial: ``Funny, isn't it, that folks who question man's ability to affect the global climate are so quick to assign human causes to the drought?''

There are severe strains on the Colorado River Basin, and 40 million people are heavily dependent on that water throughout the Southwest. Last week, we heard about the massive penguin die-off due to changing weather patterns. Of course we have been experiencing the polar vortex and wild weather this winter.

With all these bad signs, it was interesting to see a positive message emerge yesterday on the front page of The Washington Post about air pollution in China. To be sure, Chinese pollution still threatens, producing the most carbon emissions on the planet, which portend far worse climate problems in the future for everyone. It causes 1 million premature deaths a year in China and, in fact, threatens the health of west coast Americans, as we regularly breathe Chinese pollution that blows across the ocean.

It is encouraging that China is taking steps to acknowledge the problem, to track and publicize the severe pollution levels when, 5 years ago, they asked the United States Embassy in Beijing to stop publishing that same embarrassing data.

Now the Chinese Government is publishing the information itself and is even ranking the worst offenders. The 10 most polluted Chinese cities have air quality levels 6 to 10 times the pollution of the 10 worst American cities. The Chinese are providing realtime disclosure of pollution that is more ambitious than anything the United States did in the EPA's highly successful toxic release inventory that dates back almost 30 years.

It is absolutely critical that China acknowledge the problem and hold people accountable for the pollution, but it is even better news that the Chinese are going beyond mere data collection, as they unveiled a $280 billion plan to improve air quality, including limiting coal use and banning high pollution vehicles.

Isn't it ironic that the Repulbican leadership in the House of Representatives is determined to prevent the United States EPA from taking the next steps to clean up our dirty coal plants and protect us from the carbon pollution that is causing such climate disruption, all the while denying the science.

One hopes that the United States will come to its senses while it appears the Chinese are starting to come around. The future of the planet for our children and grandchildren depends upon it.

Mr. Speaker, I voted against the farm bill conference report because it represented a missed opportunity to enact necessary and long-overdue reforms. Supporters of this legislation claim $23 billion in savings, but by setting commodity target prices at today's high prices, independent experts expect that as prices drop, this legislation would cost us more in the long run.

The bill does have some bright spots. The removal of the King amendment and the inclusion of language cracking down on animal fighting are victories for animal welfare. The SNAP cuts are not as draconian as the version that passed the House last year. I am thrilled that the amendment I worked on with Representatives Polis and Massie easing restrictions on the cultivations of industrial hemp was included, which shows we are ready to look at hemp as an agricultural commodity, and not a drug. There are welcome investments in renewable energy and organics in this bill as well.

On the whole, however, the bill falls short of enacting necessary reforms, and maintains the pattern of cutting SNAP benefits for our most vulnerable while spending taxpayer dollars on wasteful agriculture subsidies. In Oregon alone, 78,000 households will face cuts to their nutrition assistance as a result of this bill, while simultaneously the bill adds to the already-bloated crop insurance program and creates even more subsidies that benefit large agribusinesses and encourage farmers to farm the system, not the land. It continues loopholes that allow one farm to claim multiple subsidy payments despite the fact that both the House and Senate passed farm bills eliminating these loopholes.

I am also disappointed that this legislation cuts overall funding for conservation programs, and fails to enact many important reforms that I have put forward in my legislation--the Balancing Food, Farm and the Environment Act of 2013--that would strengthen the conservation title. I was pleased to see the inclusion of language establishing conservation compliance, as well as enactment of a

Regional Conservation Partnership Program, which will help encourage farmers to work together to protect water quality, water supplies or wildlife habitat at watershed or regional scales. Overall, however, conservation language could and should have gone much further to provide adequate funding while optimizing results and making it easier for farmers to apply their conservation knowledge to their land.

On balance this bill represents the minimum effort that enabled its passage. It is fiscally irresponsible and continues the alarming trend of subsidizing large agribusiness while cutting benefits for our most vulnerable Americans. We can and should do better, and I will continue working to reform our federal agricultural policies to that end.

Mr. Speaker, due to a medical issue, I was unable to be in Washington, DC for votes on Monday, January 27, 2014. I support H.R. 2166, the Good Samaritan Search and Recovery Act, and H.R. 3008, which authorizes the Forest Service to exchange a small parcel of National Forest System land in Los Padres National Forest in California. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yes'' on both.

Mr. Speaker, due to a medical issue, I was unable to be in Washington, DC for votes on Tuesday, January 28, 2014. I strongly oppose H.R. 7 and had I been present for the vote, I would have voted ``no.''

H.R. 7 is a thinly veiled attempt to insert politics into the doctor's office and private market, and to continue the GOP assault on women. It would effectively ban abortion coverage in new plans available under the Affordable Care Act, even for women purchasing plans in the state-based marketplaces who

use their own, private funds to pay for their insurance. This bill would also place an undue burden on small businesses, which would have to carefully examine every health care plan they offer to find out if it covers abortion services, and imposes a tax penalty on small businesses who choose such private plans.

Finally, H.R. 7 would permanently block abortion coverage for low- income women, civil servants, DC residents, and military women by codifying anti-choice provisions throughout federal law.

Not only are these alarming policy goals, but I would note that they contradict the Republican view of government by importing government intervention directly into the doctor-patient relationship. It's bad for women, bad for families, and bad for business.