Floor Statements

Aside from having one of the best academic programs in Minnesota, the Eden Prairie School District is now home to new State champions in two sports: boys' soccer and girls' volleyball.

Despite going up against an undefeated team, the Eden Prairie boys' soccer team struck early, scoring their first goal in the 4th minute of the 2A State championship. The Eden Prairie Eagles kept up the pressure, outshooting the opposition and winning the game 3-1 while capturing their second State championship since 2002.

Then this past weekend, in what the Minneapolis Star Tribune deemed

``epic,'' the Eden Prairie girls' volleyball team won the 3A State championship throughout five sets, by battling 32 tied scores and 14 lead changes, until Eden Prairie took the final set 22-20 to win the first State championship ever.

So congratulations to these fantastic student athletes at Eden Prairie High School and also to the coaches.

Madam Speaker, I rise today for the 44,030 Americans who will be diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this year and also for the 600 Minnesotans in my own community who, sadly, lost their lives in their fight against this devastating disease in 2010.

November is Pancreatic Cancer Awareness Month. This little-understood disease is the number four killer in the United States and the only one in the top four which does not have a known cure. Of all of the cancers tracked by both the American Cancer Society and the National Cancer Institute, pancreatic cancer has the lowest relative survival rate.

Over the past 5 years, more than 210,000 individuals have been diagnosed with pancreatic cancer, and over 92 percent of those diagnosed have passed away during the first year of their diagnosis. These numbers are simply unacceptable.

To help find a cure, researchers must have the tools they need to learn more about this disease. That's why I've supported legislation that provides funding for assistance and education around pancreatic cancer across our country.

Madam Speaker, pancreatic cancer is one of the few cancers for which survival rates have not improved substantially over the past 40 years. By volunteering and supporting research, we can do a lot to defeat this debilitating disease.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

For the next few minutes, some of us who are members of the Medical Technology Caucus are going to share some of our thoughts about some of the recent troubling developments that are threatening this American industry. I will tell you, as cochair of the Medical Technology Caucus, in Minnesota, I get a chance to tour these companies. We all know the big names of the big titan companies; but nearly every week, I get a chance to tour one of these small companies that might have five employees, that might have 10 employees--companies that are not yet profitable.

They're working on these really innovative and neat technologies that are there to help patients improve their lives and save their lives. In fact,

Mr. Speaker, from 1980 to 2000, the medical technology firms were responsible for a 4 percent increase in U.S. life expectancy, a 16 percent decrease in mortality rates, and also an astounding 25 percent decline in elderly disability rates. I think, as we'll hear from some of our colleagues, particularly from the Indiana delegation, which is where we were just about a week and a half ago, we're learning there are some new hurdles on the horizon.

Number one, there is a medical device tax that will be imposed in just a little over a year. It's a $20 billion tax, and studies have shown it's going to cost the industry about 10 percent of their workforce. It's about 43,000 jobs that will be at risk. In fact, I just met with an owner of a company today who mentioned that he believes this excise tax, if put in place 1 year from now, will cost his company at least 50 high-paying jobs.

Then you have the other issue of just an FDA that has become so bureaucratic, so unpredictable, so inconsistent, and so nontransparent that it's becoming more difficult for these companies to bring these lifesaving technologies to market to make sure that the patients have access to them.

I have traveled the country--to California, to Boston, to New York, and we'll have a chance to go to North Carolina--where these pockets of industries in the medical technology field are really strong and vibrant. One area in particular was Indiana.

We were there just a little over a week and a half ago, and I will tell you, of the folks who testified there--the companies and the presence there and the jobs there--it was compelling. In fact, I'll never forget the words from one of the testifiers there at the committee when he mentioned, when he gets asked for advice on where to invest, on where to start up, that his advice to new companies is, Go to Europe. Go to Europe.

That is the wrong message.

Mr. Speaker, in this down economy, when we are trying to save jobs, when we are trying to encourage job creation, we're encouraging one of our best American success stories, one of our few net exporters, to move overseas.

We've got legislation that's actually moving forward now. Many of these members are coauthors of not only repealing the tax but also of streamlining and modernizing the FDA to make sure we're doing what Europe is doing, for instance, and to make sure we don't have as high a hurdle. We want to make sure there is a strong, relevant, rigorous process at the FDA because these companies want the gold standard. They want the gold standard of approval, but they don't want the goalpost moved in the middle of the process to make it so ridiculous that their investments are not going to be worthy of the risk/reward that they hope to have pay off.

When we were in Indiana, we had a bipartisan gathering of Mr. Rokita, Mr. Young, Mr. Stutzman, and Mr. Donnelly who were there, along with Representative Guthrie from the Energy and Commerce Committee. They took the time to come out, to listen to these companies that testified and also, more importantly, to listen to the patients. We had a patient testify as well, Sheila Fraser, who is a young high school student who was testifying about a device that was implanted in her leg. It truly is an amazing success story because, in a lot of cases, folks like her have to have amputations, and this is a device that is now improving her life.

So I think, as much as we like to talk about the jobs and the economic benefits, it's also just as important to hear it from the patients' perspectives as to how these lifesaving technologies are helping them and how these life-improving technologies are helping them.

As I mentioned earlier, we've been to California, and Mr. Bilbray is going to talk in a little while. This is an industry that covers many spectrums of the economy across the country. So I just want folks who are watching out there in America to understand there are some of us who really care about this industry. We're fighting for it, and we appreciate the input and dialogue that we've had as a part of that.

With that, Mr. Speaker, I want to first yield to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Rokita), who has been a leader already on this issue and has helped us get coauthors to repeal that onerous innovation tax.

I thank the gentleman again for his leadership. I just want to mention too, you had mentioned all the authors of this bill that are trying to repeal this onerous tax. There are actually 204 Members now, Mr. Speaker, that want to repeal this tax, bipartisan support. The amount of money this tax is expected to raise is actually equal annually to the amount of money that's invested in the industry every year. So it is a very wrongheaded move.

One of the first coauthors of this bill that would repeal this tax and who, I think, recognizes the importance of this industry is my friend and colleague from Pennsylvania. I yield to him and thank him for his leadership and for being a part of the caucus effort.

I thank the gentleman again for his leadership and for really standing up for Pennsylvania companies and understanding this is an American success story, as he outlined. He is actually a coauthor of some bills that are there to streamline and modernize the FDA, which we will talk about in a second as well.

We also have my friend, the gentleman from Indiana, here as well. Mr. Stutzman, I think you were at the hearing. Maybe you could share some of what you learned from the hearing in Indiana.

As you mentioned, I think one of the things that folks don't often recognize, the medical device industry is high-value manufacturing. Boy, I think of a State like California and the high- value manufacturing that exists there. I visited some companies in California one time, and I would like to yield to Mr. Bilbray who has been a leader on moving some of the packages of bills to help streamline the FDA and to modernize the FDA as well.

I thank the gentleman for being a leader. When folks think of States like California, they think of high technology and medical devices, but it's the investors who have a large component in States like California that invest in these companies. Unfortunately, the FDA has become so risk averse that the investors aren't investing the resources needed to start the new products, and that's the pipeline going over to Europe. That's the challenge we have.

Someone else at the hearing a little over a week ago was my friend and colleague, Mr. Young, who also heard some of these personal stories not only from the patient perspective but the innovator perspective.

I want to thank the gentleman from Indiana for his leadership and for inviting me to be a part of that hearing in Indiana.

I thank the gentleman. I'm not sure how much time we have left in our colloquy, Mr. Speaker.

Thank you, Mr. Speaker.

Mr. Speaker, we just recently concluded National Teen Driver Safety Week, which is the third week of every October. It's a week to help create awareness and focus attention on solutions for unnecessary teen driving deaths.

Each year motor vehicle accidents stand out as the leading cause of death among American teenagers--with over 68,000 American teens dying in car crashes in the last decade alone. As the father of four young daughters, I can assure you that keeping those loved ones behind the wheel safe is an important issue for myself.

There are organizations that are meeting the challenge and are working to help address the issue of teen driving. For example, the UPS Foundation has teamed up with the Boys & Girls Clubs to introduce the UPS Road Code. It's a 10-city program to educate young and aspiring drivers about safe driving methods. Programs like these will help our communities protect our young drivers and ensure a safer commute for us all.

I thank the UPS Foundation and the Boys & Girls Clubs for their hard work and dedication to this important issue.

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Mr. Speaker, I also rise in favor of H.R. 674, a bill that will repeal this ill-conceived 3 percent withholding rule for all government contractors, including private hospitals that accept Medicare or Medicaid payments and those who provide even lunches for schools.

This is one area in which Republicans and Democrats are working together, as even President Obama singled out this provision as burdensome to our Nation's job creators. The President, in his jobs plan, he proposed delaying this rule. The very fact that this rule continues to be delayed and has not been implemented since being first created in 2005 just tells you how bad of an idea it truly is. But we shouldn't just delay it; we should eliminate it and repeal it immediately.

I've spoken with many small businesses in my district that will be negatively impacted by this law because the profit margin for many of these companies that have government contracts is right around 3 percent.

One Minnesota company, Valley Paving, says that withholding 3 percent, the new 3 percent withholding law would be catastrophic on their balance sheet, meaning that covering costs, paying bills, and just covering operating costs would be a challenge. And as they point out, during these hard economic times, withholding more money from our small businesses like themselves would be that they most likely would not be able to update their equipment, not grow as fast, and not be able to hire more people.

Mr. Speaker, this goes against everything that Washington should be doing, giving our employers certainty to create more jobs. This law needs to be repealed.

Another contractor in my district, Hardrives, Incorporated, pointed out the Federal Government does not need to be playing banker with our earned income.

This law may have sounded like a good idea on paper but, in practice, it will be disastrous. This is made evident by the cost of the program itself. Implementing it for the Department of Defense alone is estimated to cost about $17 billion over 5 years.

And here's the irony, Mr. Speaker. The program is forecast to bring in a little over $11 billion across the whole spectrum of government. So the program is going to cost more to implement than it will take in.

I strongly urge support of this commonsense approach and bipartisan approach on adopting this bill. The President supports the pay-for.

I thank the member of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Herger, and I ask for its support.

Mr. Speaker, last week I spent a day traveling my district and meeting with half a dozen women entrepreneurs.

I started the morning spending time with children in Maple Grove, Minnesota, at the LilyPad Daycare that is owned by a dynamic mom and daughter team.

Next I went to Plymouth, and I visited and toured the medical manufacturer ATEK Medical, which is owned by Christy Bieber Orris and Kay Phillips. Now, they've got challenges on the horizon with the FDA and a new medical device tax, but they are determined to move forward.

I also visited a public relations firm that was started from scratch by Cindy Leines in her basement 23 years ago. Then I connected with Makya, who is living the dream of owning and operating her own educational toy store. And finally I sat down with Peg at Peg's Countryside Cafe.

Mr. Speaker, Minnesota is a great State teeming with endless possibilities because of women like these who are entrepreneurs taking risks, and we need to do more to encourage women to take the leap into entrepreneurship.

My hope is that last week's tour will help inspire more women to realize their dream of running their own business. After all, it's small businesses that will lead our way out of this tough economic situation we're in and drive ourselves to more economic growth.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate Wayzata West Middle School math teacher Seth Brown on winning the 2011 Milken Educator Award. Seth was honored by the Milken Family Foundation for his efforts to close the achievement gap and use creative technology in the classroom, particularly in using iPods as math aids.

This award is known as the ``Oscars of Teaching.'' The Milken Family Foundation gives these outstanding teachers a $25,000 award, with no strings attached. Seth plans to use this money to help pay his graduate school bills as well as donating some of the money to the local PTA, which was a strong supporter of his use of technology in the classroom.

Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate Seth Brown on his achievement and for also being an outstanding teacher. And to Seth and all the other teachers out there, I want to thank you for doing what you do in educating and inspiring the next generation of American leaders.

I thank the chairman for his leadership because this is an exciting day, an important time for our economy. I strongly urge passage of all three of these long-stalled free trade agreements which will promote exports, with new sales to new customers, giving our economy more jobs. And while some in Washington have put these trade agreements on the back burner, other countries have been moving full- speed ahead on trade. The European Union signed their own agreement with South Korea, which put American companies at a disadvantage in one of the great emerging Asian markets. Standing still on trade is moving our economy backwards.

Mr. Speaker, passing the South Korea trade agreement is the quickest and most effective way to level the playing field for American companies, small, medium, and large. One of Minnesota's major employers with lots of jobs connected to trade is 3M, which manufactures everyday products from Post-It notes to Scotch tape to road signs to medical devices. South Korea is this company's fourth-largest export market, and the passage of this trade agreement will lower the duty rate levied on these American products by $20 million. This is about selling American. This will free up additional capital to create new jobs and reinvest in innovation and research and development to create new products.

Mr. Speaker, we must remain focused on creating jobs and helping our economy. I strongly encourage the passage of the South Korea free trade agreement as well as the agreements with Panama and Colombia, marking the largest expansion of trade in 15 years.

I thank the gentleman for yielding. And I also thank you for your leadership on the Trade Subcommittee.

Mr. Speaker, there's no doubt with our economy struggling Washington should be doing everything it can to give our job creators the economic certainty that they need and they lack right now, including meaningful tax reform and alleviating government regulations. But the future of growth right now doesn't only lie in a more efficient bureaucracy or lower taxes, it also lies in giving greater export opportunities to emerging markets that are hungry--hungry for American products and our ideas.

The simple truth is that increased trade, new sales and new customers are a proven way to create jobs. These three pending free trade agreements with Panama, South Korea, and Colombia will level the playing field for American businesses, aid in our economic recovery, and allow the United States to compete and win. And with so much concern about skyrocketing deficits, increased free trade is a no-cost way to help the private sector create jobs.

In my home State of Minnesota, 60,000 jobs are dependent on global trade. Now surprisingly, it's not just our fertile soil in the ag community or the iron ore deposits up north that are creating most of these jobs. Ironically, over 90 percent of Minnesota's trade-supported jobs come from the manufacturing sector. That's a true testament to the quality of Minnesota-made products and the workers who produce them.

Now, by passing these three free trade agreements, we will reduce the barriers in three countries, allowing 60,000 Minnesotans--and now others--the opportunity to find new sales and new customers for their products, giving the companies who employ them the opportunity to expand and start hiring again.

Now, this is about doubling exports, as the President has stated is his goal. Our Governor just led a trade delegation, actually, to South Korea with 24 different businesses. And in Minnesota, it's not just about agriculture. As the chairman just mentioned a second ago, I come from a State that has 400 medical device companies. It's these high- valued manufacturing opportunities that are huge opportunities for free trade and increased sales and customers.

So Mr. Speaker, today is a good day. The White House has formally submitted these trade agreements now. The Ways and Means Committee is going to act swiftly. The House will act swiftly. Over the past couple of months, there's no doubt that Europe has gained an upper hand by passing their own agreements with Panama, South Korea, Colombia and other countries, and in doing so, we've been leapfrogged. And now this is our opportunity to get back on a solid footing. Every day of inaction that has gone by has been a day where we're falling behind and we're losing our competitive edge and putting American jobs at risk.

So Mr. Speaker, I am excited to work in a bipartisan fashion to see this come together in the coming weeks ahead and give our manufacturers a boost, give our exporters a boost, and get our economy back on track.

Mr. Speaker, each fall, high schools across America hold homecoming parades to bring their community together and welcome back alumni. For Minnetonka High School this annual parade also gives the community an opportunity to honor its local veterans. Each year a veteran is selected to carry the American flag while riding at the front of the Minnetonka Homecoming Parade.

This year, Lyle Bennis, a long time resident of Deephaven, Minnesota, and a World War II Navy veteran is carrying the Stars and Stripes at the head of the ceremony in Excelsior.

Mr. Bennis was a Boatswain's Mate 2nd Class on the USS Card and USS McCook while serving in the European theater during WWII. Mr. Bennis's destroyer group recorded the most kills of German U-boat submarines in the Atlantic.

After victory in Europe was cemented, he was transferred to the Pacific and served in the Philippines, and finally in U.S. occupied Japan.

Lyle Bennis's service to our nation should never be forgotten. I thank him, and congratulate him for leading Minnetonka's homecoming parade.

Madam Speaker, 48,000 Americans a year walk out of their doctor's office with the news that they have pulmonary fibrosis, joining the nearly 200,000 Americans already afflicted with this little understood killer. There is no known cure for this lethal lung disease, which takes the life of an American on average every 13 seconds, more than 40,000 individuals annually, roughly the same number as those afflicted with breast cancer.

This week is National Pulmonary Fibrosis Awareness Week, and I ask my colleagues to join me in cosponsoring the Pulmonary Fibrosis Research Enhancement Act. This bipartisan legislation will create a national registry, encourage Federal research at the National Institutes of Health, and also create a national action plan so that we can better understand this deadly disease and one day discover an effective treatment.

Madam Speaker, this effort is really critical to giving hope to the hundreds of thousands of people who live with this debilitating disease.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall Nos. 699, 700, and 701, had I been present, I would have voted ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, last year, as part of the new health care reform law, a new $20 billion tax on medical devices was put in place. Since the day this ill-conceived tax was first proposed on medical innovation, I have said it would reduce access to new lifesaving technologies and put American jobs on the line. Yesterday, a study was released that confirms just that. According to the report, this new tax on medical innovation, which goes into effect in January 2013, could cost America as many as 43,000 jobs in just the next several years.

Mr. Speaker, there is still time to repeal this tax. There is still time to pass my bill to prevent this job-crushing tax from being implemented and ensuring that we do everything possible to retain these high paying, high-tech manufacturing jobs here in the United States.

Made in America innovation of medical devices is an American success story. But if we don't stop this new innovation tax, we could see more jobs go overseas and the decline of one of our leading U.S. industries.

I have an amendment at the desk.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the underlying bill, H.R. 2218, the Empowering Parents through Charter Schools Act, and to offer this amendment that will give America's students more opportunities to succeed.

My amendment will make it easier for successful charter schools to replicate and expand in a timely manner because by giving these schools the ability to receive an expansion grant after 3 years rather than the current 5 years, they will be able to grow and offer quality education to even more students and provide expanded choices to parents in a shorter period of time.

So this amendment will also strengthen the bill by continuing to break down barriers to help quality charter schools grow to meet their staggering demand.

Currently, Mr. Chairman, an estimated 420,000 students across the country are being kept on waiting lists to attend the charter school of their choice. We should be giving these students more opportunities to attend and learn and be successful.

My home State of Minnesota has seen tremendous success because we have been a pioneer in expanding educational options and choice. In 1991, we were the first State to pass a charter school law, and we now have 149 registered charter schools with over 35,000 students attending them. Today, over 40 States and the District of Columbia have established charter school laws of their own.

I support the underlying bill which was crafted bipartisanly. It encourages States to support the development of charter schools. It streamlines funds to reduce administrative burdens and improve funding opportunities for the replication of successful charter schools and facilities assistance. It also supports an evaluation of the school's impact on students, families, and communities while encouraging best practices sharing between charters and traditional public schools.

There is no doubt that charter schools are a prime example that innovative education methods are constantly at work, and this bill will give our schools the ability to do even more for our children.

We all know that these charter schools consistently rank as top performers among the U.S. Department of Education's Blue Ribbon Schools, and multiple national rankings of the Best High Schools in America. It is no surprise that public support and demand for these charter schools is steadily increasing.

So, Mr. Chairman, the legislation recognizes the opportunity to enhance the empowerment of parents and should go forward, allowing them to play an active role in their child's education. This amendment will give the most successful schools the ability to grow and offer even more quality education options to more parents and students.

I want to thank Chairman Kline for his leadership, the ranking member from California for his leadership, and I also want to thank Representative Polis for cosponsoring this amendment and for his leadership and his true advocacy, his steadfast advocacy for expansion of school choice and opportunities across the country.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I ask for adoption of this bipartisan amendment and the underlying bill, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, last weekend in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, I had the privilege of attending the second annual Randy's Run, which is a 5K race that is run in Eden Prairie in remembrance of U.S. Air Force Major Randy Voas, who lost his life while serving our country a year and a half ago when his CV-22 Osprey helicopter tragically went down in Afghanistan.

Now his family and friends have found a way to honor his life and sacrifice through an annual event that is now used to raise funds for a college scholarship awarded to students at Eden Prairie High School, where Randy graduated from in 1985.

In addition to this scholarship, Randy's Run seeks to increase awareness of the contributions our men and women in uniform make every day to keep America free.

Major Voas may not be with us, but his spirit does live on in the memories of his friends and family and community and through the scholarships for local high school students who share his values.