Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I have been tracking the progress of this bill for some time now, and I applaud the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary. My district had a young girl missing for most of this month, a 14-year-old girl by the name of Lindsay Ryan. It was alleged that she was, in fact, abducted by a convicted murderer, and Michigan's AMBER Alert was initiated.

I called the county sheriff, Joe Underwood, a fine professional, as I tried to lend him my moral support. As I talked with him, I asked him the question of what could I do to help. He shared his frustration that other States did not have a system like we have in Michigan. He felt that, in fact, if other States, and there are 12 that have no AMBER Alert system at all, but if other States had a system like Michigan, the word would have gotten out right away. My district is right along the Indiana border, very close to Illinois.

After our conversation, I called the Committee on the Judiciary; and in fact, they told me about this piece of legislation which I cosponsor. I am delighted to say that it is on the House floor today, and there is good news.

Just like there was good news with Elizabeth Smart last week, there was good news this week with Lindsay Ryan. She was found alive, alive because California had a system. It was probably the good work of a Frito-Lay truck driver that, in fact, spotted the vehicle, and the police were able to get to the scene and rescue Lindsay Ryan, who is now with her family alive and hopefully well.

We want to prevent this tragedy for other families, whether they be in Michigan or North Carolina, Wisconsin or any other State. An AMBER Alert system nationwide is needed, for this family, for every family; and I would urge my colleagues to pass this legislation so that, in fact, we can use the eyes and ears of millions of Americans looking to prevent a nightmare that no family ever wants to have happen in their community or certainly in their family.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety. In 1983, it was determined that the combination of Kalamazoo police and fire services could serve as an effective method of providing more efficient and productive use of resources and employees. By cross-training personnel in both disciplines, the fire department's 164 firefighters and the police department's 219 law enforcement positions were consolidated into 383 multifunctional employees. This streamlining provided an excellent public safety service to the community while minimizing expenses. The Department of Public Safety has continued to evolve and improve since its inception--forming specialty units and services and using state of the art technology. Today, the department is the largest public safety organization in the country, with 315 highly trained and educated employees, and 2003 marks the 20th year of these combined police and fire services. I wish them many more years of continued success.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the bipartisan Animal Drug User Fee Act of 2003, legislation that I am introducing today with Reps. DeGette, Greenwood, Towns, Bilirakis, and John.

Closely modeled after the Prescription Drug User Fee Act, the Animal Drug User Fee Act is designed to give the FDA the resources and incentives necessary to significantly improve the animal drug review process. This legislation is sorely needed. Despite a statutory review time of 180 days and the enhanced flexibility granted the agency in the Animal Drug Availability Act of 1996, the average review currently takes about 1.5 years and may drag on for several years. This slowdown in review times is jeopardizing the supply of the new, safe and effective animal drugs needed to keep our pets, flocks, and herds healthy.

The Animal Drug User Fee Act of 2003 is endorsed by a coalition of organizations, including the American Veterinary Medical Association, the American Farm Bureau, the National Cattlemen's Beef Association, the National Milk Producers Federation, the American Association of Equine Practitioners, the American Sheep Industry Association, the National Pork Producers Council, and the National Turkey Federation. My cosponsors and I anticipate that additional organizations will join in this endorsement as we move forward with the legislation.

I urge my colleagues to join with me and the original bipartisan cosponsors of this legislation in supporting and cosponsoring the Animal Drug User Fee Act of 2003.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to join with Representatives Anna Eshoo, J.D. Hayworth, and Xavier Becerra in introducing the bipartisan Medicare Medical Nutrition Therapy Amendment Act of 2003. Several years ago, we amended the Medicare program to provide coverage for medical nutrition therapy services provided by registered dietitians and nutrition professionals for persons with diabetes or renal disease. The legislation we are introducing today will add Medicare coverage for services for beneficiaries with cardiovascular disease.

Medical nutrition therapy provided by registered dietitians and nutrition professionals is sound health care policy. It can save millions of dollars for a health care system beleaguered by escalating costs, and it can prevent unnecessary pain and suffering for millions of people and their families. In response to a request in the 1997 Balanced Budget Act, the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences studied the value of adding medical nutrition therapy services for Medicare beneficiaries and the Medicare program and issued a report recommending that this benefit be added to the program. The report stated that coverage for medical nutrition therapy will ``improve the quality of care and is likely to be a valuable and efficient use of Medicare resources, because of the comparatively low treatment costs and ancillary benefits associated with nutrition therapy.'' The report concluded that nutrition therapy has proven effective in the ``management and treatment of

many chronic diseases that affect Medicare beneficiaries, including . . . hypertension, heart failure, diabetes, and chronic renal insufficiency.''

I urge my colleagues who have not yet cosponsored this bipartisan, sound health policy proposal to join us in this effort.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 399, the Organ Donation Improvement Act of 2003, of which I am a cosponsor. Let me just mention one number, that for me, says it all about why we need incentives to increase organ donations across the nation. In Michigan, over an 11-month period ending on December 1 of last year, 2,420 individuals were waiting for organs, and 164 people had died while waiting. These are our constituents, our families, our friends. I know the Transplant Society of Michigan, our state's organ procurement organization, is working hard to increase donations. But they could use a helping hand, as could OPOs across the nation. The Organ Donation Improvement Act we are marking up today is a very good start.

As of September 2002, the organ transplant waiting list had more than 80,000 men, women, and children waiting for a new kidney, heart, liver, lung, pancreas, or intestine. Unfortunately, an average of 17 people die every day, one every 85 minutes, waiting for an organ that could have saved their lives. H.R. 399 takes aim at increasing anatomical giving to help meet the critical need for vital human organs and give hope for life for those that have no other options for treatment or cure.

The key to donation is public education and awareness. This legislation gives the Secretary of Health and Human Services the ability to award grants to States for the purpose of assisting States in carrying out organ donor awareness, public education and outreach activities designed to increase the number of organ donors. While there is a desperate need for vital human organs, the American public should know that there is also a continuing need for donated human eyes and tissue. Donation is the term used to describe the humanitarian act of giving to help another. Anatomical gifts include vital, life-saving human organs, sight restoring eyes, and repair and reconstruction human tissue such as bone, cartilage, tendons, skin, and heart valves.

At national, state, and local levels, a partnership exists between the organ, eye and tissue bank communities. While all three communities are considered separate, given differences in medical criteria, training needs and distribution pathways, they are united in their message to encourage the act of donation. Organ donation saves lives, eye donation restores sight, and tissue donation provides skin grafts for critically injured burn patients and benefits thousands of patients in need of bone, cartilage, tendons, and heart valves. Without a donor, transplant surgeons cannot save and improve the health of even one individual.

Every individual can sign-up to be a donor, regardless of health or medical condition. It is imperative, however, that individuals openly discuss their decision to donate with family and friends so that they may help honor their loved one's wishes and are knowledgeable about their options. Just one individual can save and improve as many as 50 lives. Representatives of hospitals, organ banks, eye banks, and tissue banks work hand in hand to see that loved ones' wishes are respected and that gifts are properly handled for the benefit of others. I commend these organizations for working tirelessly toward this end and for their efforts to educate the public on the benefits of donation.

In closing, I fully encourage all Americans to consider the altruistic act of donation and to make others aware of your decision.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4.

Mr. Chairman, welfare reform in the past did not work. We did not have it. It was welfare under the old system. We did not have reform. We passed welfare reform then; and President Clinton, after a couple of vetoes, ended up signing the bill, and we established a base to get our States out of the trouble that they were in.

Last year, this House passed a bipartisan proposal to again move the process forward, but there were some in the other body who chose not to take that legislation up. This year, we are acting a little quicker.

There are two very important components of this legislation. One is the abstinence-only education which provides $50 million each year to the States under a matching program. It does not take away from other programs, it works, and we have seen teen pregnancy rates drop dramatically in those States that have used it. In my State, a 40 percent drop.

The second thing that we did was we removed the incentive for people to stay on welfare in lots of ways. Primarily what we did, though, through TMA, transitional medical assistance, we are able to say to those folks that were on welfare and knew that by taking a job they would lose their Medicaid for themselves and their kids, that that is not going to happen, that we provided the transition so that those families could take a job, get into the workforce, move up the ladder, that they would not lose that provision that would otherwise have taken away their health insurance. We changed that. TMA is in this bill, it was the bill that we helped write in our subcommittee, it was done, and it is part of this legislation. I urge my colleagues to support it and move the bill again to the other body so that we can see this legislation reach the President's desk.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of H.R. 4, legislation reauthorizing the very successful 1996 welfare reform act. As a senior member of the House Energy and Commerce Committee and the Education and the Workforce Committee, two of the three House committees with jurisdiction over welfare reform, I have worked closely with my colleagues to further strengthen this legislation so that more families can know the benefits of personal responsibility, work, and stronger family units.

I'd like to focus today on two key components of the 1996 law that I have taken the lead on--the reauthorization of the Transitional Medical Assistance program and the Title V abstinence education block grant program.

One of the greatest disincentives to leaving the welfare rolls is the lost of Medicaid coverage for oneself and one's family. H.R. 4 reauthorizes the Transitional Medical Assistance program, which will ensure that individuals leaving welfare for employment have guaranteed health care coverage for up to one year.

H.R. 4 also reauthorizes the Title V abstinence education program at the current funding level of $50 million a year. When we passed welfare reform, we emphasized work and personal responsibility. We have made great strides in promoting work, but too many of young people's dreams are still being cut short by poor personal decisions that dramatically affect the course of their lives. Teen birth rates have been failing, but nearly \1/2\ million teens in this country give birth each year--a rate higher than those of most industrialized nations. And 8,519 births are to girls under the age of 15. We know that out-of-wedlock births and teen births take a high toll--on the child, the teen mother, and our society as a whole.

Further, sexually transmitted diseases have reached epidemic proportions, placing the health and very lives our young people in serious peril. In the 1960s, one in 47 sexually active teens was infected with a sexually transmitted disease. Today, one in four is infected.

It is important to note that State participation in the Title V abstinence education program is voluntary, and this is not free money to the States. States have to match every 4 federal dollars they receive with three dollars of their own. Yet today, 49 of the 50 states are participating.

Anyone who doesn't think abstinence education works has only to examine my State of Michigan's record. The State began its own program in 1993--the Michigan Abstinence Partnership program. One reason that it works so well is its emphasis on involving entire communities-- parents, teachers, health professionals, youth leaders, youth organizations, and community leaders--in developing programs tailored to their unique needs. Michigan's teen pregnancy rates have dropped 40 percent in the targeted group of 15-17 year olds, and for the last several years, Michigan has been one of up to five states rewarded by the Department of Health and Human Services for achieving the largest decrease in their ratios of out-of-wedlock to total births while also experiencing a reduction in their abortion rates.

Abstinence education programs are much more than ``just say no'' programs. They are positive, motivational programs that give young people the information and inspiration they need to think of their futures and abstain not only from sexual activity but also from drug and alcohol use.

Mr. Chairman, President Bush got it exactly right when he said that abstinence is not just about saying no to sex, it is about saying yes to a happy, healthier future.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize the brave men and women of the 415th Civil Affairs Company of the U.S. Army Reserve in Kalamazoo, Michigan. Often overlooked, our Reservists provide an invaluable service to our country and to our Armed Forces. The 415th Civil Affairs Company has been on continuous deployment for the better part of the last decade, separated from families, careers, and livelihoods. Now, these folks are being deployed to Kosovo to help keep the peace in an uncertain world. Freedom isn't free; it comes at a price--and individuals like these are the ones who bear the cost. I wish them a safe return.

Mr. Speaker, it was with some reluctance that I voted for the OSU resolution.

Much has been said today about the quality of the Ohio State players, coaches, and fans. However, nothing has been said about the refs.

After watching the game I too, wondered about the refs and their ability to be employed in the future. I was pleased to see that they seemed to be in action just a couple days later during the San Francisco-N.Y. Giants game on Sunday.

I yield back the balance of my time.