Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 3304) to increase the access of persons with disabilities to modern communications, and for other purposes.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to begin by commending subcommittee Chairman Boucher for his incredible work on this issue. I also commend Chairman Waxman, who dedicated a lot of time to making sure that this piece of legislation would come to fruition here this evening. I would also like to thank Chairman Stearns--Ranking Member Stearns on the minority side--along with Mr. Barton, who is the ranking member of the full committee, Mr. Burgess, and all of the minority members.

If you were to look up in the dictionary the words ``bipartisan effort,'' this bill's number would be next to that effort.

On July 26, the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, the House passed, by an overwhelming bipartisan margin of 348-23, the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act that I'd introduced last year to update the ADA for the digital era.

On August 5 the Senate passed the companion bill by unanimous consent, and then on September 22 the Senate unanimously passed the bill to make technical corrections to its companion bill. We are now taking up both of these bills, and we'll send them, after passage, to the President to be signed into law.

If you're an individual who's blind, deaf, or both, navigating an intersection can be a challenge, but navigating the Internet can sometimes be even more difficult; and that's because laws to ensure equal treatment for Americans with disabilities have focused primarily on things like wheelchair access rather than Web access. That is about to change.

At this historic moment, I'd like to think that Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan are looking down on us here tonight and smiling. This picture was taken in 1888 in Brewster, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. Whether it is a braille reader or a broadband connection, access to technology is not a political issue--it's a participation issue. Each of us should be able to participate in the world to the fullest extent possible, and the latest communications and video devices and services can enrich and ennoble how Americans experience and enjoy their lives.

Coming out of the Energy and Commerce Committee's Telecommunications Subcommittee over the last two decades have been a whole series of legislative initiatives aimed at broadening access for Americans who are disabled to technologies that can help them do things that most of us take for granted.

In 1990, we made sure that Americans who are deaf could make telephone calls.

Around the same time, 1990, we mandated that television shows be closed captioned for the deaf so that they can enjoy the same entertainment and other programming as many Americans. Many deaf and hard-of-hearing people say that closed captioning is the single modern accessibility technology that has changed their lives the most.

And in 1996, in the Telecommunications Act, we inserted language which required accessibility of all telephone equipment, including telephones, telephone calls, call waiting, speed dialing, caller ID, and related services.

Twenty years ago, the ADA mandated physical ramps into buildings. Today, individuals with disabilities need online ramps to the Internet so that they can get to the Web from wherever they happen to be.

From the time of Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan through the Americans with Disabilities Act to closed captioning for television programming and ability of the deaf to make telephone calls, and now to the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act on the floor tonight, we've made important progress. We've moved from braille to broadcast, from broadband to the BlackBerry.

Annie Sullivan used special language she spelled in Helen Keller's palm. In

the 21st century, we've moved from tracing letters of the alphabet on a palm to navigating a Palm Pilot, and we must ensure that all of these devices are accessible to the deaf and the blind in our society. That's what this legislation does here this evening.

Annie Sullivan was an incredibly dedicated and determined teacher. Now, technology needs to be the teacher, the constant companion providing instruction and access to the world and opportunities that otherwise would be out of reach. Helen Keller did learn to speak--and Helen Keller is still speaking to us tonight--about how all of us should make the most of our abilities and participate in society to the fullest, but we need the technologies to make that possible being made accessible to each American.

The bill we are considering tonight significantly increases accessibility for Americans with disabilities to the indispensable telecommunications and video technology tools of the 21st century by making getting on the Web easier through improved user interfaces for smartphones; enabling Americans who are blind to enjoy TV more fully through audible descriptions of the on-air action; making cable TV program guides and selection menus accessible to people with vision loss; providing Americans who are deaf the ability to watch new TV programs online with the captions included; mandating that remote controls have a button or similar mechanism to easily access the closed captioning on broadcast and pay TV; requiring that telecom equipment used to make calls over the Internet is compatible with hearing aids; and for low-income Americans who are deaf and blind, providing a share of the total $10 million per year of funding to purchase accessible Internet access and telecom services so these individuals can more fully participate in our society.

I thank my colleagues for their support for this landmark legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material on S. 3304.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

This bill has been several years in the making. It's going to have a transformative effect on the lives of the deaf and the blind in our country, and ultimately in the world, because the technologies we develop here will help all of the deaf and blind be able to use information in this wireless world that all information is now migrating to.

I want to thank Roger Sherman, Tim Powderly, Sarah Fisher, Amy Levine on the Democratic side. Neil Fried and Will Carty on the Republican side for their great work. To Colin Crowell on my staff for many years, who helped to conceptualize what it is that we are doing today. And especially to Mark Bayer on my staff, who has worked tirelessly over the last year and a half to bring this bill to fruition. Looking down I think and smiling right now on this legislation are Karen Peltz Strauss, Rosaline Crawford, Jenifer Simpson, Eric Bridges, Mark Richert, Larry Goldberg, Steve Rothstein from the Perkins School, and Mike Festa at the Carroll Center. Incredible advocates, and the conscience of this issue, why we're here. I thank all who worked on this legislation.

I urge an ``aye'' vote.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (S. 3828) to make technical corrections in the Twenty-First Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act of 2010 and the amendments made by that Act.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials in the Record.

I rise in support of this legislation to make corrections to the bill that the House just passed. The corrections are technical in nature, and once this bill passes, the House will send to the President landmark legislation to update our country's accessibility laws for the Internet age.

Again, I thank the minority for their cooperation on this historic legislation. It does show what good can be done when this institution works as it should. I thank my colleagues for their support.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, so with the request that this body in unison vote ``aye'' on this historic legislation, I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman from Washington State so much, and I thank my friend from Florida (Mr. Stearns), my cosponsor of this legislation and my cochair of the Congressional Cystic Fibrosis Caucus, for his incredible work in helping to bring this moment into being.

The Improving Access to Clinical Trials Act will enable more individuals with rare diseases to participate in clinical trials offering hope for cures to devastating diseases like cystic fibrosis. This bill is urgently needed.

Current eligibility requirements for Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income shut out many disabled and low-income Americans from participation in potentially lifesaving clinical trials. That is because, in accordance with current ethical standards, many clinical trials offer modest compensation for patient participation, which can average around $500. Low-income patients with rare diseases face a serious barrier to taking part in drug trials, as the modest fee they receive for participation counts towards their eligibility for Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid and can push their income above the established caps. This forces patients to choose between receiving the essential benefits they need to live and the opportunity to participate in a clinical trial that could improve their condition and offer hope for a cure. This is a cruel choice that no one should have to make.

The bill we are considering today addresses this situation by allowing Medicaid recipients and individuals who receive Supplemental Security Income to participate in clinical trials to provide compensation without the risk of losing their benefits, and by excluding up to $2,000 in compensation a patient receives from a clinical drug trial from his or her income calculation for Supplemental Security Income and Medicaid eligibility.

Our bill applies to rare disorders, which are defined as diseases affecting less than 200,000 people in the United States. There are more than 6,000 rare disorders that, taken together, affect approximately 25 million Americans. Examples of rare diseases include ALS, Crohn's disease, cystic fibrosis, Huntington's disease and Parkinson's disease.

The House version of this bill, which Mr. Stearns and I introduced more than a year ago, has 141 bipartisan cosponsors. The Senate version we are considering today, which included Medicaid eligibility in addition to SSI, passed the Senate by unanimous consent on August 5. The Congressional Budget Office has determined that the bill has no cost to the Federal Government. While there is no cost to the government, for millions of Americans the benefits could be enormous-- the chance to receive treatment that could dramatically improve their health.

For scientific research, clinical drug trials are an essential part of the process for searching for treatments for diseases. When testing treatments for rare diseases in particular, researchers need patient participation from a significant percentage of patients with each disease in order to produce valid results. Consequently, researchers often struggle to recruit enough patients.

Today, we are working to eliminate one of those barriers to participation by opening clinical trials for rare diseases to those on Medicaid and Supplemental Security Income.

This could produce dramatic advancements towards a cure for rare disorders, including cystic fibrosis. There are approximately 30,000 people living in the United States with cystic fibrosis today. In the 1950s, children with CF usually didn't live past the age of kindergarten. Now, CF patients live productive lives with a median age of 37, thanks to advances in medical research just over the last 40 years.

More than 30 potential therapies are in the CF drug development pipeline today, more than in the entire history of CF research, and many are being tested in clinical trials.

In the next 2 to 3 years, we will need more than 7,000 CF patients to participate in clinical drug trials. Three thousand CF patients participated in drug trials last year. Nearly 50 percent of the CF population receives public benefits, including SSI and Medicaid.

Listen to that again: Nearly 50 percent of the CF population receives public benefits, including SSI and Medicaid.

While the average clinical trial compensation amount for a cystic fibrosis drug is $700, an individual with cystic fibrosis often has medical expenses totaling nearly $80,000 per year. Clinical research is critical to our progress towards curing rare diseases such as cystic fibrosis, especially at a time of tremendous opportunity and hope in medical research.

The bipartisan Improving Access to Clinical Trials Act will encourage patients suffering from rare diseases to participate in promising clinical research that may lead to cures, better treatment, and ultimately, saved lives, without having to worry that they could lose SSI benefits.

Our bill has been endorsed by more than 120 organizations, including the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation, the Biotechnology Industry Organization, the National Health Council, and Research!America.

Research is medicine's field of dreams from which we harvest the findings that give hope to millions of Americans that the disease that runs through their family's history may finally be cured. That is what this bill is all about, ensuring clinical trials are conducted that give families hope.

Again, I want to thank the gentleman from Florida and the leaders of the Ways and Means Committee for all of the work that you have done in making this a possibility. I urge an ``aye'' vote.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased that the House was called back into session to take up and pass this critical jobs measure today. This bill will bolster working-class Americans, ensure that our teachers are protected from layoffs and reduce the deficit.

However, I am very concerned that the Senate chose to take $1.5 billion out of the Renewable Energy Loan Guarantee Fund to help pay for this legislation.

Congress already tapped this program once when it took $2 billion out of this program to extend the very successful ``Cash for Clunkers'' program that did so much to jump-start auto sales last year. While the House voted last December to restore that funding, the Senate failed to act. Now, with this bill, Congress will be taking another huge bite out of the program. That's $3.5 billion cut out of a $6 billion program.

Through discussions with the Department of Energy, I understand that this fund will still have enough money to finance renewable energy projects through the first quarter of next year. But the funds that we are borrowing today must be replenished before then.

The $1.5 billion in loan guarantee funds would pull an additional $15 billion of private investment off the sideline and put it into the economy at a time when we need that investment the most. It would continue to build on the 190,000 new jobs that this program and others from the Recovery Act have created in the clean energy sector.

American consumers currently send half a billion dollars a day overseas to pay for foreign oil--money that goes to the Middle East, OPEC and countries that wish us harm. Instead, we should invest that money here at home, putting people to work building electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar panels and smart grid technology.

Make no mistake, we are in a global race with China for clean energy manufacturing jobs and technology. The country that leads the world in developing clean energy will lead the world in creating jobs.

China just threw down the gauntlet with a $738 billion investment in renewable energy over the next ten years. We must respond to that challenge rather cutting our own investment.

This bill is worthy of our support and I encourage my colleagues to vote ``Aye'' on the underlying bill. But let's make sure we work to replenish the renewable energy loan guarantee fund so that our young industry has a shot at winning the clean energy race with China.

Vote ``aye.''

I thank the gentleman, and I thank George Miller for his decades of work in ensuring that whistleblower protections are built into the laws of our country in order to ensure that workers are not living in terror, that they stand up for safety.

During the last 3 months, Congress has conducted a vigorous investigation into the causes and response of the BP Deepwater Horizon disaster. What we've found was that BP was woefully unprepared for this kind of a spill. From the beginning, BP has been making it up as they go along. BP said the rig could not sink. It did. They said they could handle an Exxon Valdez size spill every day. They couldn't.

Early on in the disaster, BP was talking about using a junk shot where they shoot golf balls into the well. Well, when we heard that they were

bringing in the best minds and that they were working on this problem, we thought they meant MIT, not the PGA.

BP also talked in the first 3 weeks about deploying nylons and hair to soak up the oil. The American people expected a response on the par with the Apollo Project, not ``Project Runway.''

And from the start, BP has been more interested in protecting its own liability than preserving the livability of the Gulf of Mexico. BP started by saying this spill was 1,000 barrels a day. It wasn't. They knew it. They said it was 5,000 barrels per day; they knew that it was not. And by now, we know it was much, much larger, upwards of 60,000 barrels a day.

Our investigation uncovered that no major oil company would have been able to respond to this type of spill any better than BP. In fact, the Gulf of Mexico oil spill response plans from Exxon Mobil, Chevron, ConocoPhillips and Shell were 90 percent identical to BP's. They were such dead ringers for each other that they listed the phone number for the same long-deceased expert as the person to call. The response plans also included plans to evacuate walruses from the Gulf of Mexico, even though walruses haven't called the Gulf of Mexico home for 3 million years. It seems that the only spill response technology that the oil industry had invested in is a Xerox machine. No oil company took this responsibility seriously.

The legislation that we will vote on today will ensure that there will be accountability, stronger regulations, and a requirement that before oil companies drill ultra-deep that they have the technology necessary to make it ultra-safe and can respond to a spill ultra-fast.

We need whistleblowers to make sure that we never again see what has happened in the Gulf of Mexico, and that is the important piece of legislation that we are debating right now: whistleblower protection. In this legislation, we are putting into place state-of-the-art protections for oil and gas workers who are retaliated against because they report safety concerns or they report a failure on the part of their employer to have a good blowout response plan.

We know from our investigation both into this disaster and another BP rig operating in the gulf, the Atlantis rig, that BP has cut corners on safety, even if it meant risking workers' lives and environmental calamity. For example, an employee working on the BP Atlantis rig warned in 2009 that BP was failing to meet its requirement to maintain accurate engineering drawings aboard the rig which would enable an effective response to an accident. The whistleblower was fired after making his disclosure. BP continues to deny this problem on the Atlantis rig exists, even though former Federal district court judge Stanley Sporkin who was hired by BP to serve as an independent ombudsman has confirmed that the whistleblower's allegations are true.

And on the BP Deepwater Horizon, workers were also fearful of the extent of the problems aboard the Deepwater Horizon. Jason Anderson told his wife that he couldn't discuss his concerns because, quote, the walls are too thin. Mr. Anderson died in the April explosion.

This bill will ensure that all workers who report safety or blowout response plan concerns who are then fired, demoted or otherwise retaliated against by their employers will be protected. These workers will be entitled to due process at the Department of Labor; and if the Department of Labor fails to act, they will be entitled to a jury trial. They will also be entitled to receive appropriate damages to ensure that they are made whole.

I thank the gentleman.

In the wake of the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe, we have heard that the workers aboard the rig had safety concerns. But in the end, they were powerless to stop the cascading string of bad decisions by BP that led to the disaster. They clearly feared for the loss of their jobs and of their livelihoods.

Our legislation will protect these brave Paul Reveres in the oil industry who sound alarms in the future. I thank Chairman Miller for his historic work on this legislation. I thank all of the Members who are focusing on this issue, so that people who stand up to protect the safety of workers do not have to lose their jobs.

I yield to the gentleman from California.

The gentleman put his finger right on it. There would be a completely different response if the spill were not 1,000 barrels or 5,000 barrels per day but, rather, 30,000 to 60,000 barrels per day. It delayed the response. Much more harm has been done to the people in the Gulf of Mexico. There was a greater delay in bringing in all of the skimmers, all of the new technologies to be able to deal with this spill. If a whistleblower knew that it was not 1,000, knew that it was not 5,000, they should not have to fear that they would lose their job if they wanted to protect the oceans of America and the workers in the Gulf of Mexico rather than being afraid that they would lose their own job and their own family's livelihood. That is why this legislation is so important.

I thank Mr. Rahall for his great leadership working with Chairman Waxman and Chairman Stupak and I on the Energy and Commerce Committee to include new safety procedures.

This bill takes lessons learned and will turn them into laws. That's what we need to do. Included in this bill is a provision which is going to collect $53 billion from the oil industry, where they are drilling in American waters without paying any royalties to the American people. And in this bill we reclaim those $53 billion from the oil companies, and we will reduce the Federal deficit by $53 billion. That's in this bill. And it is going to be the dues which the oil companies should be paying to the American people for using American waters.

At $80 a barrel, for the American people to be subsidizing Big Oil to drill, it would be like subsidizing a fish to swim or a bird to fly, to subsidize the oil industry to drill for oil at $80 a barrel. You just don't have to do it.

So with this bill we cut the deficit and we stop Big Oil from cutting corners on safety. This is BP's spill, but it is America's ocean. That's what this bill is all about. That's what this vote is on today. Are we going to reclaim the oceans of America so that they are not polluted, so that BP and the oil companies pay the royalties that they owe to our people and not avoid them, that we reduce the Federal deficit and we make sure that we never again see a day where the American people for 100 days have to watch oil flow into our oceans?

Vote ``aye'' on this very important legislation.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to introduce the Health Outcomes, Planning and Education (HOPE) for Alzheimer's Act. I would like to thank my colleague and fellow co-chair of the bipartisan Alzheimer's Task Force, Mr. Chris Smith of New Jersey, for partnering with me on this important legislation.

An estimated 5.3 million Americans have Alzheimer's disease, and 1 in 10 individuals has a family member with the disease. Unless science finds a way to prevent or cure it, nearly 16 million Americans will have Alzheimer's disease by the year 2050.

The HOPE Act aims to increase detection and diagnosis of Alzheimer's disease and other dementias and provide access, information, and support for newly diagnosed patients and their families. The bill would provide for Medicare coverage of comprehensive Alzheimer's disease and other dementia diagnoses and services in order to improve care and outcomes for Americans living with the disease.

At present, most people with Alzheimer's disease and other dementias have not been diagnosed. This only contributes to the difficulty surrounding this disease. Data from a recent study in the Journal of General Internal Medicine conducted from 2002 to 2003 show that only 19 percent of people age 65 with dementia had a diagnosis of the condition in their primary care medical record. In addition, ethnic and racial populations at higher risk for Alzheimer's are less likely than whites to have a diagnosis of the condition.

Delays in diagnosis have various negative consequences for patients and their families. One such serious consequence is that if individuals do not receive treatments early, when available medications are more likely to be effective, then families have less opportunity to make legal, financial and care plans while the person living with Alzheimer's or dementia is still capable.

While America works towards investing more in research for Alzheimer's to move towards a cure for this devastating disease, we must also help the many affected families to plan for the care of the patients. This bipartisan legislation is a good step in ensuring these important steps are taken.

The Alzheimer's Association has endorsed our legislation, which will increase the likelihood that Alzheimer's will be diagnosed sooner and help individuals plan for the required care associated with Alzheimer's. I look forward to continuing to work with my colleagues on this important issue throughout the legislative process.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5320) to amend the Safe Drinking Water Act to increase assistance for States, water systems, and disadvantaged communities; to encourage good financial and environmental management of water systems; to strengthen the Environmental Protection Agency's ability to enforce the requirements of the Act; to reduce lead in drinking water; to strengthen the endocrine disruptor screening program; and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and to include extraneous material on the legislation.

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

When people, Mr. Speaker, turn on their bathroom or kitchen faucets, they often take for granted that an abundant supply of clean water flows freely from their taps. It is only when the water stops flowing due to a catastrophic failure that attention is given to the complexities of providing clean, safe drinking water.

In early May, when a breach of a 7-year-old pipe caused a water supply emergency that affected over 2 million residents of Boston, Massachusetts, and its surrounding areas, including a large portion of my district, our attention was drawn to this issue.

Although the incident in Massachusetts could not have been anticipated because the pipe that broke was so new, each time something like this occurs, public attention immediately turns to the need for increased Federal funding for infrastructure projects that ensure a safe drinking water supply for years to come.

Now, in the Energy and Commerce Committee, working under Chairman Waxman's leadership and partnering with Betty Sutton, with Joe Barton, with Fred Upton and all of the very distinguished members of our committee who care so deeply about safe drinking water, we reported out a piece of legislation by a 45-1 vote.

Our bill does reauthorize the Safe Drinking Water Act State Revolving Fund for the first time since its creation in 1996 and will ensure that the public water systems deliver safe, affordable drinking water to the American people while creating jobs, prioritizing financially sound investment in our water structure.

I urge the Members of this House to support this legislation.

When people turn on their bathroom or kitchen faucets they often take for granted that an abundant supply of clean water flows freely from their taps. It is only when the water stops flowing due to a catastrophic failure that attention is given to the complexities of providing clean, safe drinking water.

Examples of these types of catastrophic failures occur frequently all across the United States. In fact, earlier this month, just outside of Washington, DC, residents of Rockville, Maryland, were faced with water restrictions when twice in one week a massive 52-year-old water main broke sending water spewing into the sky and creating a river out of the local streets.

Another incident occurred in early May, when a breach in a 7-year-old pipe caused a water supply emergency that affected over 2 million residents of Boston, Massachusetts, and its surrounding areas, including a large portion of my district.

A boil-water advisory lasted for several days. People swarmed the grocery stores to stock up on bottled water. Restaurants and diners had to close because they had no water to serve or wash dishes with. And people had to get through Monday without their morning cup of coffee. In the Boston papers, the entire incident became known as the Aqua- pocalypse.

Although this incident in Massachusetts could not have been anticipated because the pipe that broke was so new, each time something like this occurs, public attention immediately turns to the need for increased federal funding for infrastructure projects that ensure a safe drinking water supply for years to come.

The reality is that the country's drinking water infrastructure is rapidly aging. EPA estimates that over the next 20 years, water systems will need to invest nearly $335 billion on infrastructure improvements to ensure safe water to our Nation. Water systems simply can't afford to do this on their own, and people who are already struggling to pay their water bills can't absorb these costs either.

The Assistance, Quality, and Affordability Act was introduced by the Gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman), the Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee and me earlier this year. It was reported out of the Energy and Commerce Committee by a strong bipartisan vote of 45-1. Our bill will reauthorize the Safe Drinking Water Act State Revolving Fund for the first time since its creation in 1996. It will ensure that public water systems deliver safe, affordable drinking water to the American people, while creating jobs and prioritizing financially sound investment in our water infrastructure.

As a result of a truly cooperative and bipartisan effort, this bill has strong support from affected stakeholders across the board-- including rural and metropolitan water systems, state drinking water administrators, civil engineers, labor unions, water technology research and environmental groups.

This bill will make a number of changes to the Safe Drinking Water Act State Revolving Fund to invest in the future and longevity of our Nation's water system.

This bill increases water project funding from $1.4 billion in 2011 to $1.8 billion in 2015. This will mean that more drinking water projects can be completed, and that more jobs are created for people who need them. A December 2008 report from the U.S. Conference of Mayors estimated that every million dollars of drinking water and wastewater infrastructure investment directly creates 8.7 jobs. Over the next 5 years, our legislation would therefore lead to more than 65,000 new jobs.

We have also included a new emphasis on cutting-edge projects to allow funding priority to be granted for projects that will make drinking water safe and affordable for years to come. We will also encourage projects that increase water and energy efficiency, and projects that anticipate future problems and propose repairs before a crisis occurs.

We've ensured that we are directing resources to those who need it most, so that water systems serving communities that can't afford to pay for the upgrades necessary to comply with Safe Drinking Water Act standards are given what they need to do so.

We've also included a change in drinking water enforcement requirements that will ensure that systems that have violated drinking water standards in the past are inspected to

ensure they stay compliant. I would like to thank Congressman Bobby Rush for his work in this area, following a truly horrific case in the village of Crestwood, Illinois, in which people were literally and knowingly poisoned by the water they were drinking for decades.

We have included in this bill a study for the presence of pharmaceuticals and other personal care products that may be found in sources of drinking water. So we can better understand how to manage this type of water contamination in the future.

Finally, this bill also includes language to strengthen EPA's endocrine disruptor screening program. Endocrine disrupting chemicals are the equivalent of computer viruses. Over time, they can severely disrupt the body's operating system. In fact, since the industrialized era, there has been a constant rise in the incidence of chronic diseases such as cancer, obesity and diabetes.

Scientific evidence increasingly indicates a relationship between these medical conditions and increased exposure to a wide array of chemical substances that are used in modern society. It is vital that EPA have a more robust and transparent program that screens drinking water contaminants to identify the chemicals that pose such concerns.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield as much time as she may consume to the gentlelady from Ohio (Ms. Sutton) who worked very, very hard on this legislation and her fingerprints are all over it.

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

Mr. Speaker, I just want to say that if Mr. Barton's mother is up right now, she's up too late and she's watching C-SPAN; both of those things are probably not good for her. So we hope Mom is asleep at this time, as are most Members of Congress at this point, with the exception of the ones who are speaking on the floor of the House.

This bill does increase funding from $1.4 billion to $1.8 billion between now and 2015. We ensure that there is more directed, laser-like focusing of where these resources go to get the maximum benefit.

The bill includes my language to strengthen EPA's Endocrine Disrupter Screening Program. Endocrine-disrupting chemicals are the equivalent of computer viruses; over time they can severely disrupt the body's operating system. In fact, since the industrialized era, there has been a constant rise in the incidence of chronic diseases such as cancer, obesity, and diabetes, and the clues to what is causing that could very well be in the water which we drink. And so we really strengthen the program at EPA so that we find out what is in the drinking water, especially for children in our country, as their bodies are being formed.

I would like to insert into the Record a revised cost estimate of the reported legislation done by the Congressional Budget Office, which corrects an earlier estimate that was inaccurate.

Again, I thank Ms. Sutton for her work, especially the work on the ``Buy American'' parts of the legislation. I want to thank all of my colleagues, especially Mr. Barton, for his work, and the bipartisan work of all of the members of the committee who worked so hard on this legislation.

I would also like to thank the staff who have worked diligently on the details of this bill: Drs. Michal Freedhoff and Avenel Joseph of my staff; Jackie Cohen, Tracy Sheppard, Greg Dotson, Peter Ketcham- Colwill, Kristen Amerling and Phil Barnett of the Energy and Commerce Committee staff. And in the minority, Jerri Couri, David Cavicke, Katie Wheelbarger, Michael Beckerman, Amanda Mertens-Campbell and Garrett Golding.

I commend this legislation to all of the Members and I urge an ``aye'' vote.

H.R. 5320--Assistance, Quality, and Affordability Act of 2010

Summary: H.R. 5320 would authorize the appropriation of

nearly $5 billion for the Environmental Protection Agency

(EPA) to provide grants to states and nonprofit organizations

to support a wide range of water quality projects and

programs over the 2011-2015 period. This legislation also

would authorize the appropriation of $5 million annually over

the next five years to support EPA's Endocrine Disruptor

Screening program. CBO estimates that implementing this

legislation would cost about $3.5 billion over the next five

years, assuming appropriation of the authorized amounts.

Remaining amounts would be spent after 2015.

The staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT)

estimates that enacting the bill would increase the use of

tax-exempt bonds by states, thus reducing revenues by $35

million over the next 10 years. Pay-as-you-go procedures

apply because enacting the legislation would affect revenues.

H.R. 5320 would impose intergovernmental and private-sector

mandates as defined in the Unfunded Mandates Reform Act

(UMRA). CBO estimates that the aggregate cost of the

intergovernmental mandates would fall below the annual

threshold established in UMRA ($70 million in 2010, adjusted

annually for inflation). Based on information from industry

sources, CBO estimates that the aggregate cost of private-

sector mandates would probably exceed the annual threshold

established in UMRA for the private sector ($141 million in

2010, adjusted annually for inflation)

Estimated cost to the Federal Government: For this

estimate, CBO assumes that the bill will be enacted near the

beginning of fiscal year 2011, that the full amounts

authorized will be appropriated for each year, and that

outlays will follow the historical patterns of spending for

existing programs. Components of the estimated costs are

described below.

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

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 3101) to ensure that individuals with disabilities have access to emerging Internet Protocol-based communication and video programming technologies in the 21st Century, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous materials in the Record.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is great to see you, my colleague from New England, presiding in the chair today at this historic moment. You are always going to have a permanent place in the history of our country. You are a great leader and an inspiration to all of us. And everything that we are doing today is inspired by your incredible personal courage. With the incredible example that your service to the House is providing, I am confident that you will not be the last who will sit up there and preside, but only the first in a long line.

Now since I introduced the legislation before us today, we have engaged in a bipartisan, extensive, and constructive process with stakeholders to find common ground on the legislative language and to move forward with this bill. I want to thank the leadership of Chairman Henry Waxman, without whom we would not be here today, Rick Boucher, who worked over the last year to construct this legislation before us, to Cliff Stearns from Florida, who worked in a bipartisan fashion to craft this historic legislation which we are about to consider, to Joe Barton from Texas, who ensured that from the very beginning this would be a bipartisan effort that we would put together in order to pass the historic legislation that is today before us.

I would like to think that Helen Keller and Annie Sullivan are looking down on us here this afternoon and that they are smiling. This picture of the two of them was taken in 1888 in Brewster, Massachusetts, on Cape Cod. I am so proud to have the Perkins School for the Blind, where Annie Sullivan graduated and Helen Keller was educated, in my congressional district in Watertown, Massachusetts.

When they met 122 years ago, they were a stunning study in contrast: Alabama and Massachusetts, a daughter of the south, a young woman of Irish descent traveling south from Boston. Nevertheless, they changed the world together, these two miracle workers.

They shattered expectations about what a person who was deaf or blind could achieve. Now, I am an American of Irish heritage from Boston, and my

mother was a Sullivan. She always told me that her relatives were a particularly smart and determined lot, but I can only imagine the bottomless resolve and resilience Annie Sullivan must have needed to navigate her way in the South in the aftermath of the Civil War.

Whether it is a Braille reader or broadband connection access to technology, it is not a political issue. It is a participation issue. Each of us should be able to participate in the world to the fullest extent possible; and the latest communications, video services and devices can enrich and ennoble how Americans experience and enjoy their lives.

We are debating this bill today on the 20th anniversary of the Americans with Disabilities Act, which the first President George Bush signed into law, underscoring the nonpartisan nature of this vital issue. The 20th anniversary is an opportunity to look back and to reflect on the progress which we have made. Coming out of the Energy and Commerce Committee's Telecommunications Subcommittee over the last two decades have been a whole series of legislative initiatives aimed at broadening the disabled community's access to technologies that can help them do things that most Americans take for granted.

In 1990, we made sure that Americans who are deaf could make telephone calls. In 1990, we mandated that television shows be closed- captioned for the deaf so that they could enjoy the same entertainment and other programming as other Americans. Many deaf and hard-of-hearing people say that closed-captioning is the single modern accessibility technology that has changed their lives the most. Then, in 1996, we inserted language which required the accessibility of all telephone equipment, including telephones, telephone calls, call waiting, speed dialing, caller ID, and related services.

Two decades ago, Americans with disabilities couldn't get around if buildings weren't wheelchair accessible. Today, they can't get around without being Web accessible. That is what we are talking about here today. Twenty years ago, the ADA mandated physical ramps into buildings. Today, individuals with disabilities need online ramps to the Internet so that they can get to the Web from wherever they happen to be.

From the time of Heller Keller and Annie Sullivan through the Americans with Disabilities Act, to closed-captioning for television programming, to the ability of the deaf to make telephone calls, and now to the 21st Century Communications and Video Accessibility Act on the floor today, we have made important progress. We have moved from Braille to broadcast TV, from broadband to the BlackBerry. We have moved to ensure that, in each area and today, we move to the Internet to ensure that everyone in our country has access to this key information technology.

Annie Sullivan used special language. She spelled in Helen Keller's palm. In the 21st century, we have moved from tracing the letters of the alphabet in a palm to navigating a Palm-Pilot, and we must make sure that all of these modern devices are accessible. Annie Sullivan was an incredibly dedicated and determined teacher. Now technology needs to be the teacher--the constant companion providing instruction and access to the world and opportunities that otherwise would be out of reach.

By age 10, Helen Keller had mastered reading, Braille and manual sign language. She then wanted to learn how to speak. At the Horace Mann School for the Deaf in Boston, Helen took lessons. Then Annie took over and worked with Helen. Helen did learn to speak, and Helen Keller is still speaking to us today about how all of us should make the most of our abilities and participate in society to the fullest, but we need the technologies to make that possible for every American.

The bill we are considering today significantly increases accessibility for Americans with disabilities to the indispensable telecommunications and video technology tools of the 21st century by making Web access easier through improved user interfaces for smartphones; by enabling Americans who are blind to enjoy TV fully through audible descriptions of the on-screen action; by making cable TV program guides and selection menus accessible to people with vision loss; by providing Americans who are deaf the ability to watch new TV programs online with the captions included; by mandating that remote controls have a button or a similar mechanism to easily access the closed-captioning on broadcast and pay TV; by requiring that telecom equipment used to make calls over the Internet is compatible with hearing aids; and by providing a share of the total of $10 million per year of funding to purchase Internet access and telecom services for low-income Americans who are deaf and blind so that these individuals can more fully participate in society.

Today's miracle worker--today's technology, today's ability to be able to provide the technologies that people need today--is one that, as we move forward, we have to make sure has the accessibility for all Americans. That technology is the iPad. The iPad is something that today makes it possible for Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller to be able to access with a touch the technologies that the Helen Kellers and the Annie Sullivans of today need in order to be able to communicate with each other and with all of the rest of us. So it is not just like touching the palm like it was in Annie and Helen's day. It's about touching the pad, touching these devices, having them speak to them, and having the ability to be able to speak back in a way that has a conversation with all of the rest of us in society.

This morning, I did a teleconference with a group of phenomenal students from the Perkins School for the Blind and the Carroll Center for the Blind. These young people were born before President Bush signed the ADA into law. They were born before the BF era, before Facebook. That's how long ago all of this is. These two schools are led by two extraordinary visionaries who serve with amazing passion and commitment--Steve Rothstein of Perkins and Mike Festa of Carroll.

Opportunity, independence, equal access for all--that's what this legislation is all about. These are timeless American values that were as relevant when Annie Sullivan and Helen Keller were working together as they are today. When we maximize participation for all Americans, we move forward as a country. When we expand the circle of inclusion, we evolve as a people. When we increase accessibility for Americans with disabilities, we get closer to fulfilling the ideals of our Nation's Founders that all men and women are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

This legislation which we are considering today is intended to increase access for all Americans with disabilities to the technological tools to succeed in today's interconnected world.

Again, I want to thank the entire disabled community, the deaf and the blind communities that have advocated for years for this incredible revolution that is happening here on the floor of the House of Representatives today. We are in your debt for being the advocates, for being the witnesses to history so that we make this change today.

Again, I want to thank Chairman Waxman, Mr. Boucher, Mr. Barton, Mr. Stearns, and all of the Members who worked together in order to make today the great historic success it is going to be.

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

The legislation would not be here today without the incredible leadership of the Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. He resolved the most nettlesome of issues in the final week in a way that has made it possible for us to bring this historic legislation here to the floor. I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman).

Mr. Speaker, would you advise us as to how much time is remaining on either side?

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I thank the gentleman from Florida again for his work on this legislation, and to Mr. Barton and to all of the Members on the minority, we could not be here without their cooperation today.

This is a very complex piece of legislation. It's historic, but it required a lot of bipartisan work to bring us to this point.

I want to thank Neil Fried and Will Carty on the minority staff for their work on this legislation. On the majority side, I want to thank Roger Sherman, Tim Powderly, Amy Levine, Sarah Fisher. For many years, Colin Crowell, on my staff, worked on this legislation. But over the last 1 year, Mark Bayer has worked every day on this bill. And I thank you, Mark, for your incredible effort on this issue. We could not be here without the incredible work that was put in by all of these people.

Back 20 years ago, we had a force of nature, Tony Coelho, the majority whip, who said it's time for us to ensure that all Americans have access to all this great bounty in our country. And he had a handicap himself, and he inspired all the rest of us. A force of nature. And former Congressman Tony Coelho is out here on the floor with us today, and he was an inspiration to us.

That inspiration was carried by Steny Hoyer to ensure that that legislation did pass here in 1990. It was signed by President Bush into law. And all of the advances that were made thus far that make it possible for the historic moment where we have a Speaker who is sitting up there today, Mr. Langevin from Rhode Island, and all the people who are using today's devices to gain access to the modern Internet technologies are benefited from the laws that have been put on the books today.

For the 21st century, this law may be the most important law. Because people now have wheelchair access, access to the Web. Access to information is what this century, this information century, is going to be all about. And the deaf and the blind, because of this legislation, will be able to make their contributions to our country and the world.

And let's not kid ourselves. The technologies that are developed here in the United States are going to spread across the whole world for every deaf and blind person. And that's quite a gift that the people who are here in the Congress can make.

So I thank the community. I thank you all. I know that so many of you are here and so many of you are watching and listening. I can only pledge to you that we will continue to ensure that access is something that we guarantee

as a right to be an American in every year that we will serve here in Congress.

Mr. Speaker, it's my honor to have been here on the floor with you presiding over this historic 21st century legislation. You are the right person to be here to create a ramp for the Internet, for the 21st century, for all Americans. I urge an ``aye'' vote on this legislation.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Announcement by the Speaker Pro Tempore

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

Madam Speaker, since the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon and the death of 11 workers on April 20, 2010, the American people have watched helplessly as millions of barrels of oil have spilled into the Gulf of Mexico. It has become obvious that the technologies to drill ever deeper for oil and gas have developed rapidly, but the technologies needed to prevent or stop catastrophic spills have not. That is why I am introducing the Stop Oil Spills Act, or the SOS Act. If we are going to drill ultra-deep, we must be able to make that drilling ultra-safe and to stop any spill ultra-fast.

The SOS Act repeals Sections 999A through 999H of the Energy Policy Act of 2005 and establishes in its place the ``Innovative Offshore Drilling Safety Technology Program.'' The bill takes $50 million per year in oil and gas royalty payments, which currently are directed to a 2005 Energy Policy Act program that subsidizes industry development of deepwater drilling technology, and redirects those funds to a Department of Energy grant program to develop next-generation technologies to prevent or stop offshore drilling spills. This new program will help ensure that we avoid future offshore well blowouts like the one that led to the current disaster in the Gulf of Mexico, and that in the event of a blowout, that we have the right tools on hand to stop the spill quickly and effectively.

The latest estimates are that between 35,000 and 60,000 barrels of oil are spewing into our territorial waters every day. While BP gave assurance that it could respond to a spill of more than four times this amount, the reality is quite different. In attempt after failed attempt to stop the flow of oil into the Gulf, from ``top kill'' to ``top hat'' to ``junk shot'', BP has demonstrated that it is not prepared to deal with the consequences of a deepwater well blowout with such great pressures and depths. With other companies' spill response plans virtually mirroring those of BP's, it appears that the industry as a whole is equally unprepared.

Over the last three years, the five largest independent oil producers amassed nearly $289 billion dollars in profits, invested a total of $39 billion to explore for new oil and gas deposits, and invested more than $10 billion in research and development. And yet over that time, ExxonMobil, ConocoPhillips, and BP invested an average of just $20 million per year in research and development on safety, accident prevention, and spill response technologies and capabilities. BP CEO Tony Hayward's admission that his company lacks the tools to respond to the current spill is the direct result of a pattern of investment that prioritizes ultra-deep drilling over ultra-safe drilling.

The SOS Act will not increase costs to taxpayers. The bill is paid for by redirecting royalty payments that are now being used to subsidize industry development of deepwater drilling technologies, something that industry has the resources and incentives to perform on its own. The SOS Act will ensure that the technologies we will need to respond to the next oil spill are being developed and tested with the Federal government's support and guidance.

The bill requires the Secretary of Energy, in consultation with the Secretary of Interior, to establish a program within six months to provide awards to support the development, demonstration, and commercialization of innovative technologies to prevent, stop, or capture large-scale accidental discharges of oil or other hydrocarbons from offshore oil and gas drilling operations, including deep-water and ultra-deepwater operations.

The awards will focus on new technologies or innovative improvements to existing technologies. These include blowout preventers, secondary control systems, remotely operated vehicles or technologies to stop or capture hydrocarbons from offshore wells. The bill directs the Secretary to select projects on a competitive basis, based primarily on the potential for commercialization of the relevant technology and the potential to enhance industry's capacity to prevent, stop or contain a large-scale spill from offshore drilling operations.

The program will be carried out in accordance with an annual plan prepared by the Secretary that takes into consideration recommendations from a Technical Advisory Committee established by the bill, as well as recommendations from the independent commission established by the President to investigate the Deepwater Horizon spill and the existing Interagency Coordinating Committee on Oil Pollution Research. The annual plan shall be transmitted annually to Congress and made available on the Internet.

Finally, the bill establishes a Stop Oil Spills (SOS) Fund in the U.S. Treasury and moves funds from the existing industry research and development subsidy program from the Energy Policy Act of 2005 into this new Fund. For each of fiscal years 2011 through 2017, from any Federal royalties, rents, and bonuses derived from Federal onshore and offshore oil and gas leases issued under the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, $50,000,000 shall be deposited into the Fund. Monies in the Oil SOS Fund shall be available to the Secretary for obligation without fiscal year limitation and up to five percent of the monies may cover the costs of administering the program.

We will continue to be susceptible to the risk of deepwater blowouts and hydrocarbon

spills as long as we are dependant on petroleum to meet our energy needs. While we work to reduce and eliminate this dangerous dependence, we must do everything in our power to decrease the likelihood of a catastrophic spill and increase our capacity to stop it and respond to it. The SOS Act will put us on the path of improving the safety of our drilling operations and ensuring that the appropriate tools are in the toolbox to respond if another spill emergency ever occurs.

I thank the chairman very much. I thank him for his excellent work and for his timely hearings on this catastrophic event.

I thank the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps) for her excellent work on this indispensable piece of legislation and for working together in a bipartisan fashion with the minority to ensure that we have an historically accurate assessment of what has happened in the Gulf of Mexico.

Madam Speaker, President Obama established a bipartisan National Commission to investigate the causes of the BP disaster through Executive order. However, the President does not have the authority to give the commission subpoena power. That requires the Congress to act.

BP's response continues to be marked by catastrophic failures. Just today, an accident with an underwater recovery at the bottom of the sea has forced BP to remove the containment cap, and oil is now gushing into the ocean at a rate of 25,000 to 50,000 barrels per day. BP's mistakes seem to be without end.

BP said the rig couldn't sink. It did. BP said they could respond to an Exxon Valdez-sized spill every day. They couldn't. BP initially claimed that the oil spill was 1,000 barrels a day. It wasn't. BP knew it. Internal BP documents show that, in the first week of the disaster, BP estimated the size of the spill could be as high as 14,000 barrels per day. It took BP 23 days to finally agree to release video footage of the oil spill. Even then, BP initially only released video of one of the 12 remote operating vehicles on the ocean floor.

All along, it seems that BP has been much more concerned about its own liability--they pay a fine per barrel of oil per day--than they have been with the livability of the Gulf of Mexico and with the livelihoods of the people who are dependent upon the Gulf of Mexico for their livings.

BP's actions raise significant concerns about whether it will fully cooperate with the commission. We need to ensure that neither BP, Halliburton, Transocean nor any other party could prevent the commission from getting to the bottom of what went wrong at the bottom of the ocean on April 20, 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon exploded.

Congress has granted subpoena power to Presidential commissions investigating national crises in the past, including the Kemeny Commission, which investigated the disaster at Three Mile Island, and the 9/11 Commission.

As the worst environmental disaster in our Nation's history continues to unfold in the gulf, the American people and the people of the gulf coast deserve answers so that we can prevent similar disasters in the future. This legislation will ensure that the National Commission has the power it needs to get those answers for the American people.

We have to make sure that this never happens again. We have to make sure that the lessons learned are implemented. If the oil industry is going to drill in ultradeep waters, we have to ensure that it is ultrasafe and that there is an ultrafast response that can, in fact, ensure that there is a minimization of the harm done to the residents of the gulf. Every oil company now says they have no capacity to respond ultrafast to a catastrophic event the size of what is happening in the gulf right now. We have to make sure that none of this occurs again. Only with the subpoena power can we understand everything that happened--only with the passage of that today.

Again, I urge all Members to cast an ``aye'' vote.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 5026) to amend the Federal Power Act to protect the bulk-power system and electric infrastructure critical to the defense of the United States from cybersecurity and other threats and vulnerabilities, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and include extraneous material in the Record.

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

Right now, Mr. Speaker, America's electric grid is vulnerable to cyber or other attacks by terrorists or hostile countries. Our adversaries are actively probing these weaknesses and already have the capacity to exploit them. The consequences of such an attack could be devastating. The commercially operated grid provides 99 percent of the power used by our defense facilities. Every one of our Nation's critical civilian systems--water, communications, health care, transportation, law enforcement, and financial services--depends on that grid. Classified Member briefings have underscored the urgency of this threat.

The GRID Act, which has been produced out of the Energy and Environment Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, working with Mr. Upton, the ranking member of the subcommittee, passed by a unanimous 47-0 vote. It is the product of months of bipartisan work led by Chairman Waxman and Ranking Members Barton and Upton. It reflects important work by Mr. Barrow and other members of the Energy and Commerce Committee and by Chairman Thompson, Representative Clarke-- Chairwoman Clarke--and others on the Homeland Security Committee. And it shows that when it comes to the nexus between national security and energy, all Americans agree that we must chart a more secure path.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the chairman of the full Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentleman from the State of California (Mr. Waxman).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Barrow), to whom Chairman Waxman has already made reference. Mr. Barrow is probably the longest-standing Member who has been working on this issue.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Rhode Island (Mr. Langevin), who, in the last Congress, was the chair of what is now the Emerging Threats Subcommittee on the Homeland Security Committee. I have worked with him under his leadership on these issues for years.

(Mr. LANGEVIN asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

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

The GRID Act has three basic components.

First, it establishes Federal authority to address emergency situations. If the President identifies an imminent threat to the bulk power system or to other parts of the grid that serve critical defense facilities, the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission can issue an emergency order requiring measures to protect against this threat. This authority covers threats from cyberattacks, from electromagnetic weapons, from direct physical attacks, or from solar storms.

However, in many cases, we will not know about a cyberattack or other threat to the grid until it's too late. Accordingly, the GRID Act establishes measures to protect the grid against key vulnerabilities so that, if and when an emergency does happen, we are already prepared.

Most importantly, if FERC identifies a vulnerability to a cyber or to an electromagnetic attack that has not adequately been addressed, it has the authority to require intrameasures to protect the bulk power system.

The legislation also requires FERC, within 6 months of enactment, to establish measures to protect against the Aurora vulnerability to cyberattack. That vulnerability was identified nearly 3 years ago, but the current standard-setting process has not addressed it. That is unacceptable. It must be fixed.

Ranking Member Upton and other members of our committee sat through a top secret briefing last October with regard to the threat that this Aurora vulnerability and that other vulnerabilities pose as potential threats to our country and which could be exploited by other countries or by subnational groups or by domestic terrorists. This is something that we must close. I think every Member in that top secret briefing left, having experienced a sobering moment in their lives, realizing the great responsibility we have to pass legislation that can deal with this problem.

The GRID Act also deals with other critical vulnerabilities. Solar flares cause geomagnetic currents that can destroy large electric transformers. Experts agree that it is only a matter of time before we experience a solar storm large enough to bring down a large portion of the grid, potentially causing trillions of dollars in damage. In addition, the grid is highly vulnerable to attack because the large transformers upon which it relies are built overseas and can take years to replace. The GRID Act addresses these issues by requiring the development of reliability standards to protect against geomagnetic storms and to ensure the availability of adequate backup supplies of large transformers.

Finally, the GRID Act gives FERC the authority to protect portions of the grid that serve the top 100 critical defense facilities against a cyber or an electromagnetic weapons attack.

The amended version of the bill now before the House makes one change to the version reported out of committee. In order to make the bill deficit neutral, the amended bill exempts the Bonneville Power Administration and the Tennessee Valley Authority from requirements other than cyberprotections during the first 11 years after enactment. With this change, the Congressional Budget Office has determined that the bill will not affect direct Federal spending. The amended bill does not score.

Colleagues, the electric grid's vulnerability to cyber and to other attacks is one of the single greatest threats to our national security. This bipartisan legislation is critical to empowering the Federal Government and the private sector with the capacities they

will need to protect us against that threat.

There are people plotting right now that, if they could, would exploit this vulnerability.

I urge all Members to vote ``yes'' on the GRID Act. It is a moment that we must all come together in order to protect our country.

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

I thank the gentleman from Michigan for working with the majority in such a cooperative fashion. National defense is an area where we should be trying to cooperate, and this bill is a preeminent example of that happening in this Congress. And I want to thank him and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Barton) for creating that atmosphere which made it possible.

I think that this is a historic piece of legislation. Mr. Waxman and I and all of the Members on our side really do believe that this is the way Congress should work. I congratulate the gentleman for his work on it.

I have no further requests for time, and I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield back the balance of my time with the urging of an ``aye'' vote by the Members.

I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, the amendment I am offering today, along with the gentlelady from California (Mrs. Capps), would add a new R&D program specifically focused on increasing our Nation's capacity to turn new innovations into new jobs. A clean energy consortium would be regionally based, selected by the Secretary of Energy through a competitive process, and include research universities, national labs, industry, and other State and nongovernmental organizations with expertise in clean energy development.

Moving to commercialize innovations in the clean energy sector is critical to our ability to compete for jobs with China and India. The faster we bring clean energy technologies to market, the faster we end our addiction to foreign oil from the Middle East. Our amendment will connect professors with producers, inventors with investors to move energy innovations out of the lab and into the factory.

Unlike research in biotech and defense, technology developed through energy R&D must break into a deeply entrenched market at a competitive cost in order to be successful. We need policies that can help overcome the valley of death where great ideas frequently stall before they have reached the critical proof-of-concept stage. That's what we do in this amendment.

We have worked with business, universities, and venture capital groups in developing this legislation. It has received endorsements from TechNet. The National Venture Capital Association has endorsed this amendment. The Clean Economy Networks, the companies across this country that want to focus on this energy sector, create millions of new jobs want this as part of the plan that we put together to make sure that it's not just research; it's research that turns into jobs rapidly in our country.

May I inquire of the Chair, how much time is remaining?

At this point, I will yield to myself for 30 additional seconds.

This commercialization focus program complements existing R&D initiatives. Strong, long-term support for basic and applied research is critical to developing the scientific breakthroughs needed to meet our energy challenges, but additional focus on commercialization will help ensure that existing innovations and those further down the pipeline find a pathway to the market. It creates the link between R&D and economic development and job creation. Without it, I do not believe America can win in this sector.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from California (Mrs. Capps).

Could the Chair please inform us of how much time is left.

Would it be possible for me to ask for the gentleman from Texas to draw down his time a little bit more before we come to the end of the speakers on the Democratic side?

Mr. Chairman, I yield 30 seconds to the

chairman of the Science Committee, Mr. Gordon.

I yield 30 seconds to the gentlelady from Wisconsin (Ms. Moore).

I am now the last speaker, and I am going to reserve the balance of my time pending the completion.

So how much time is remaining?

I yield myself the balance of my time.

Again, it is just to make this point that we must find a way in our country to have a plan. In China, on Monday they decide to do something, on Friday it starts to happen.

We need a plan. We need a plan to put together our inventors and our investors. We need a plan that puts together our professors with our producers. We need to find a way in which we telescope the timeframe it takes to create jobs in solar and wind and all of these new industries that have the potential of creating 2 million new jobs in our country or millions of jobs in China. That's our choice.

And if we don't take this opportunity, then young Americans are going to wonder in a few more years why we didn't put together a plan. That's what this amendment is. It's a pilot project, but it is one that will then have to be modeled in area after area around this country to ensure that we move fast to capture this renewable energy revolution that is very rapidly going to overtake this planet in the same way that the dot-com revolution did so in the 1990s.

Vote ``yes'' on the Markey-Capps amendment.

Madam Speaker, on rollcall No. 245, I inadvertently voted ``no,'' but intended to vote ``yes.''

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on the bill, H.R. 5019, into the Record.