Floor Statements

Thank you, Madam Chair, and I rise today to support H.R. 2021, the Jobs and Energy Permitting Act; and I want to thank our Energy and Commerce ranking member for providing time.

Representing a heavily industrialized area that's naturally sensitive to air quality issues, I appreciate how the EPA's enactment of Clean Air Act provisions has positively attributed to our goal of cleaner air. For that reason, I have remained hopeful that EPA's administrative air permitting barriers to exploring Alaska's Outer Continental Shelf would be addressed, but they haven't. As such, we continue to see air permits for offshore exploration wells perpetually go back and forth between the producer, the EPA, the Environmental Appeals Board, with no movement towards a final decision.

That's why I am an original cosponsor of the Jobs and Energy Permitting Act, which would rectify several of those process questions so that we can safely and responsibly produce our natural resources in the Arctic Ocean. The EPA needs to have a permit approval system in place that is predictable, workable, and understandable.

When I hear that in the last 5 years Shell has drilled over 400 exploration wells worldwide while waiting for one single permit for Alaska, something's definitely wrong with the process.

While the opponents of this legislation are saying that this bill guts the Clean Air Act, that's just not true, because all this bill does is match EPA's Outer Continental Shelf permitting process with the air permitting process employed by the Department of the Interior in the Gulf of Mexico, a Clean Air Act air permitting process that has been successfully used for decades.

By doing so, we can rest assured that we have a strong, offshore air permitting process, but that these projects are not left in limbo like we have seen with the Environmental Appeals Board in recent years.

I also want to remind my colleagues that this bill just addresses permits for exploration wells where activity typically only lasts for a few days, not production wells where activities last for months.

I have long been a supporter of safe and responsible drilling on the Outer Continental Shelf as these resources are a vital source of energy for the

United States. With skyrocketing fuel costs, it is imperative for the U.S. to diversify our energy sources by exploring this area, and this bill is the first step in that process.

I strongly encourage my colleagues to support the bill.

Mr. Chair, on rollcall No. 437, I missed the vote due to a hearing on Pipeline Safety in Energy & Commerce Subcommittee. Had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

Stated against:

Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of the LaTourette amendment and of the thousands of American workers, contractors and small businesses that benefit from the use of Project Labor Agreements.

Created by the National Labor Relations Act of 1935, Project Labor Agreements, or PLAs, allow construction workers to enter into a collective bargaining agreement that establishes the terms and conditions of employment for all workers on a construction project.

Project Labor Agreements are cost effective and pro-business. They are used in every State on private- and public-sector construction projects. Fortune 500 companies such as Wal-Mart, Toyota, and Boeing praise and use PLAs because they provide contractors with a reliable and uninterrupted supply of trained workers at predictable costs for wages and benefits.

PLAs provide uniform working conditions and rules on construction sites, thereby making the work site safer while businesses benefit by paying less in worker compensation and avoid project delays due to the lessened risk of job site accidents.

PLAs encourage the employment of local residents, ensuring that these workers' paychecks will be spent in the local community. PLAs can also be used as a way to enhance the work opportunities of military veterans and underrepresented communities.

PLAs have been used for the construction of some of our Nation's most iconic building projects, including the Coulee Dam in Washington State, the Trans-Alaska Pipeline, and the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

PLAs represent the best of what can happen when labor and business come together.

I urge my colleagues on both sides of the aisle to support American workers and businesses and vote in favor of the LaTourette amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to explain my absence from votes cast on the evening of May 25, 2011. My voting percentage is 97.5 percent for the 112th Congress, and I rarely miss votes, but due to a prior commitment scheduled before we knew the House would be in session late tonight, I was required to fly back to Houston and miss the vote to concur with Senate amendments to the PATRIOT Act.

On the vote I missed:

To approve and concur with the Senate amendments on the PATRIOT Act, had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

And on final passage of the PATRIOT Act, had I been present, I would have voted ``no.''

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 376, Consideration of PATRIOT Act Extension, had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong opposition to H.R. 1216, legislation to convert mandatory funding authorized under the Affordable Care Act for Teaching Health Centers to authorized funding.

The Affordable Care Act authorized and appropriated $230 million for a 5-year payment program to support accredited primary care residency training operated by community-based entities, including community- based health centers. This training takes place in community-based settings such as community health centers.

Research shows that CHC-trained physicians, for example, are more than twice as likely as their non-CHC-trained counterparts to work in underserved areas, ensuring that that kind of training takes place, which is what mandatory spending support for programs does. It will help strengthen the primary care workforce in underserved areas, particularly in areas that struggle to recruit and retain a sufficient workforce.

The Teaching Health Center program supports the training of individuals who will practice family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, internal medicine pediatrics, obstetrics and gynecology, psychiatry, general dentistry, pediatric dentistry, and geriatrics-- those disciplines where we're experiencing significant physician shortages.

It's hypocritical for my Republican colleagues to take away this funding. They continue to argue that there are not enough physicians to provide care to people who need them in primary care services. This program is designed to help address this very problem. But they keep trying to have it both ways in health reform debate, and this is just another example.

Today, the majority is going to say they have an obligation to ensure this program is subject to the appropriations process due to the need for transparency in our spending process and current budget process. Let me remind the majority that we're not the only party who's directed mandatory funding for programs. The majority must have certainly supported autopilot spending, as Representative Foxx described the Teaching Health Center program earlier this afternoon, when they passed the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, which required mandatory funding for transitional programs. I suppose at that time, the majority certainly felt they knew better than the appropriators that the MMA was a worthy program and deserved mandatory funding, even though they passed it under the cover of night with a lot of arm-twisting.

I can't understand the opposition, particularly from my Republican colleagues. They repeatedly and inaccurately complain that we don't do enough to promote health workforce expansions, and now they're going to cut funding for the health workforce expansion.

Turning the Health Center program into a discretionary one will make it challenging for these 11 programs that have already made the decision to participate in consultation with key stakeholders, like teaching hospitals and their boards, and based on the expectation that continued funding will be available. Converting this program to discretionary funding will also deter other entities from making the business decision necessary to expand residency training, since funding over the next few years could be subject to the annual appropriations fight.

This is yet another political stunt by the majority to attempt to defund health reform--this, through their playing games with funds dedicated to ensure that we have physicians in our country.

Several weeks ago, they couldn't stop talking about how Medicaid will be greatly improved with the Ryan budget because it provides States with block grants to run their Medicaid programs. How great would it be to eliminate Medicare by giving seniors vouchers to purchase health insurance? And this week, we're busy taking away funds to ensure that we train enough physicians to ensure all Americans have access to affordable care. Once again, the majority has their own priorities.

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

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from the Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps).

Mr. Chairman, I gladly yield 3 minutes to our ranking member of the full Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. Waxman).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to a classmate and also the vice chair of our Democratic Caucus, the gentleman from California (Mr. Becerra).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 15 seconds.

I will be glad to cosponsor the bill to make it mandatory funding for children's hospitals. I think if health care is a priority, we ought to do that.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, how much time remains on each side?

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

When Congress dealt with The Affordable Care Act last year and the year before, our subcommittee on Energy and Commerce spent exhaustive hearings, late-night hearings, we had markups overnight, and so we knew what we were doing. We knew we were going to make a priority in providing primary care for our country.

That's why it's mandatory spending. I would assume in 2003, when we passed the provision for the prescription drug act for Medicare, my Republican colleagues did the same thing at the time in the majority: they wanted to make sure that that was mandatory spending.

And here we are today trying to take away mandatory spending from primary care physicians in community-based settings. I have a great example of this in our own district, and I know the chairman knows this.

We have a community-based health center in Denver Harbor in east Harris County. They have had a partnership with the Baylor College of Medicine for a number of years, and what they have been able to do is provide those residencies to come out to a nonwealthy area of town so those doctors can learn that they can make a living serving folks that are not wealthy. That's what this is all about. We found out that the statistics showed that if they do their residency through a community- based health center, they will actually be more likely to come back and serve those communities. And that's why there needs to be mandatory spending, Mr. Chairman.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself as much time as I may consume.

My colleague from California must have this bill confused with medical malpractice. In fact, the State of California and the State of Texas already have medical malpractice reform. That's not what this bill is about. This bill is about training primary care physicians to be able to serve everyone. I want them to serve the military. I want them to serve our veterans.

In fact, again, I have a VA hospital in Houston that has a cooperative arrangement with the Baylor College of Medicine for a residency program. That's great. I want them also to be able to do that in their clinics. But I also want it for community-based health centers. And our statistics show us that if we have that example and it's mandatory spending that they make these agreements, that those folks will come back. They may go back to a military clinic, they may come back to a community-based health center, or they may come back and open up their practice in an area that's not the wealthiest part of town. That's why this mandatory legislation is so important.

If you put a priority on making sure our constituents can go see a doctor, I can't imagine repealing this--voting for this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Will the gentleman yield?

I thank the gentleman for yielding.

Again, this is not a medical malpractice bill, but I would be glad to offer you to be a cosponsor. We passed the bill out of this House twice and sent it to the Senate which would allow volunteers to go into community-based health centers and be covered under the Federal Tort Claims Act. Congressman Murphy from Pennsylvania is a lead sponsor of this Congress. I've been the lead sponsor when Democrats have been in control because we need to do that. If I could do it under this bill, I would do it. But this came out of your conference that you want to repeal mandatory spending to try and train primary care doctors to serve in primary care clinics or whatever.

Mr. Chairman, my colleague from California again is confused. We have H.R. 5 that the majority has to federalize medical malpractice insurance in our country. Some States have taken care of it. The State of Texas has done it by constitutional amendment. And that debate may come up if the majority brings up their H.R. 5.

With that, Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to my colleague from New York, Congressman Tonko.

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

I have no problem with including children's hospitals , and I think we could probably pass it on the suspension calendar if we had legislation that would expand that mandatory funding for teaching hospitals, and particularly children's hospitals, but that is not what this legislation does today. It takes away that help we are providing to train more primary care physicians in our country. That is what this bill does: It takes away the mandatory funding.

Now there have been examples all through history of mandatory funding. We realized during the Affordable Care Act that we need more primary care physicians. We need a lot more health care providers. We need more nurses. We need everything. In fact, it is a great job growth area. But we know we need primary health care providers because we know when somebody needs a doctor, they will see that primary care doctor. They may need a specialist, but they still need to go to that primary care doctor. That is why this mandatory funding is so important, and that is why this bill is the wrong way to deal with it. That is why it shouldn't be considered today. I would hope everybody would realize that if you support health care and primary care physicians, you would want that mandatory training so we can get those physicians out in the community where they are really needed.

Numbers show that if we have a program like this where primary care physicians will go into a community based health care center, they will go into that area as part of their residency program, they are more likely to come back to that community. That is why that was part of the Health Care Act. We have people who their primary care physicians now are the emergency rooms in hospitals in my district. I would much rather they be able to go see a doctor down the street for their sinus infection than showing up at midnight in an emergency room where we are going to end up having to pay for it, even at a public hospital, where the local taxpayers are paying for it. That is why this mandatory spending is so important. And that is why I think it is so the wrong way to go in health care, to take away mandatory spending for primary care physicians. That is something that is so important in our country, it should be mandatory.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Let me correct some of the statements that have been made. We have had mandatory hospital training residency programs since 1965. By taking away direct or mandatory spending for community-based residency programs, it is a direct attack on community-based programs. Let me list for you the teaching hospital programs that are under mandatory that was part of the Affordable Care Act. I joked on the floor one night to my colleague from Georgia, I wish they would name it the Green Act, GreenCare instead of ObamaCare, because I am so proud of that law.

The teaching hospital program supports the training of individuals who practice in family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, internal medicine pediatrics, obstetrics, gynecology, psychiatry, general dentistry, pediatric dentistry, or geriatrics. These are disciplines where we are experiencing significant physician shortages. That is why we need the mandatory spending. It does cover children.

Now, we have had mandatory spending for hospital training, again, since 1965. All this bill would do would be to take it away from community-based health centers where we know there is a shortage. The statistics show, if you have doctors who do their residencies or residency programs through community-based centers, they are more likely to go back there and practice, whether they be pediatricians, whether they be in family practice, whether they be in internal medicine. That's where we need the growth and to have primary care physicians. This is a direct attack on health care in our own country.

Why wouldn't we want it mandatory for community-based facilities if it's already mandatory for hospital-trained physicians? We need physicians in the community, not just in the hospitals.

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

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman and Members, I know there has been talk only about obligated money. I would like to introduce into the Record a press release issued on January 25 of this year from Health and Human Services announcing the new Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education Program. And of those programs, it lists the ones; and that money is obligated, but there will be no future funding for them. So you get a few months of funding, but you don't get any more funding.

These centers--six of them are in Republican districts, five in Democratic districts--will get a very short 3 months' worth of funding if this bill becomes law. And it doesn't do any good. The graduate medical education pays for the training of that physician. These community centers will only receive a short term funding. So it may only be talking about that obligated money, but they won't get any more after this year if this bill becomes law. That's why it is so important that this bill be defeated or that we adopt an amendment similar to our colleague from California.

HHS Announces New Teaching Health Centers Graduate Medical Education

Program

Eleven centers will support primary care residency training in

community-based settings

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius today announced the

designation of 11 new Teaching Health Centers in the Teaching

Health Center Graduate Medical Education program, a 5-year

program that will support an increased number of primary care

medical and dental residents trained in community-based

settings across the country. These Teaching Health Centers

will be supported by funds made available through the

Affordable Care Act and will help address the need to train

primary care physicians and dentists in our nation's

communities.

With the funds, these Teaching Health Centers can seek

additional primary care residents through the National

Resident Matching program this month and will train 50

additional resident full-time equivalents beginning in July

2011. While 3 months of funding totaling $1,900,000 is being

awarded this first program year, in future years the annual

funding will increase to cover the full-year costs, as well

as additional residents. These investments provide an

important platform for expanding the primary care workforce

and creating more opportunities to prepare physicians to

practice primary care in community-based settings, while

ensuring primary care services are available to our nation's

most underserved communities.

``The Teaching Health Center program is an integral part of

our mission to strengthen the nation's primary care workforce

and ensure that all Americans have adequate access to care,''

said Secretary Sebelius.

The new Teaching Health Centers are distributed around the

nation and will train residents in family medicine, internal

medicine, and general dentistry. Teaching Health Centers will

receive up to 5 years of ongoing support for the costs

associated with training primary care physicians and

dentists. HHS' Health Resources and Services Administration

(HRSA) will administer the program.

``Participating in this program not only provides top-notch

training to primary care medical and dental residents, but

also motivates them to practice in underserved areas after

graduation,'' said HRSA Administrator Mary Wakefield, Ph.D.,

Madam Chair, I move to strike the last word.

First of all, I have utmost respect for Congresswoman Foxx of North Carolina. But her amendment is a solution in search of a problem. Graduate medical education does not do abortions.

The teaching hospital center program funds training for primary care residents. There is no payment for services in the law. It's about salaries, benefits, and paying faculty. Teaching health centers will pay for abortions no more than Medicare Graduate Medical Education has paid for abortions for the last 45 years.

The President signed the executive order to make all the provisions subject to the Hyde amendment, all the provisions of the Affordable Care Act subject to the Hyde amendment. The executive order establishes a set of policies for all provisions of the Affordable Care Act to ``ensure Federal funds are not used for abortion services'' consistent with the Hyde amendment. The Presidential order reinforces what we all agree on. No one is here claiming that we should use Federal funds for abortion, except in very limited circumstances, whether they are under this program or elsewhere.

There is another layer of protection codified in permanent law under section 245 of the Public Health Service Act. The Coats amendment clearly prohibits the Federal Government from discriminating against any physician, post-graduate physician training program, or participant in a program of training in the health care professions because the entity refuses to participate in abortion training. That's not an appropriations vehicle; it's not an executive order. It's the law of the land.

That's why I say this amendment is a solution in search of a problem. There is not a problem with Graduate Medical Education, whether they be teaching hospitals, whether they be community-based centers that this bill is subject to.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of H.R. 1229.

H.R. 1229 is important because while the moratoria on shallow water drilling and deep water drilling were lifted on May 28, 2010 and October 12, 2010 respectively, since that time, BOEM has only issued 51 permits for new shallow water wells and only a handful of permits for deepwater activities that were subject to the moratorium. This is in comparison to an average of 10 permits issued per week pre-spill.

While I support the safety requirements that the Department of the Interior has put into place since the Macondo Spill, I continue to hear from companies that the BOEM is rejecting drilling applications without providing adequate guidance as to what is needed to get the application approved. This is getting us nowhere. We need this production.

America's offshore, primarily the Gulf of Mexico, supplies 30% of American oil and 10% of American natural gas. Yet, a recent study done by Wood Mackenzie concluded that nearly one third of American deepwater production would become uneconomic if the Department of the Interior increases the time spent reviewing and permitting drilling permit applications. Based on these figures, some estimate as many as 125,000 jobs could be lost in 2015.

That is why I support H.R. 1229 and why it is desperately needed. I encourage my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of H.R. 1230.

Gas prices continue to rise. The instability in the Middle East is threatening our supply, and we already import much of our oil from countries that are hostile to our interests. We need to safely and responsibly produce our domestic resources offshore in order to reduce this reliance on foreign imports and in turn, increase our economic growth.

We cannot forget that just one production rig equals 500 jobs--100 workers on the rig, plus 400 workers supporting drilling operations onshore. This industry comprises not only oil and gas companies, but also a network of suppliers and contractors that purchase goods as diverse as forgings, valves, computers, chemicals and helicopters from suppliers in all 50 states.

That is why I support H.R. 1230, which would force lease sales in the Gulf of Mexico and offshore Virginia that were delayed or cancelled following the Macondo spill.

I encourage my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 298, had I been present, I would have voted ``aye.''

I thank my colleague on the Energy and Commerce Committee for yielding to me.

To follow up what my colleague also from Texas and on Energy and Commerce talked about employers dropping insurance, that is why we need these insurance exchanges. Even before the Affordable Care Act, employers were dropping insurance for their employees or making it cost prohibitive for them to cover themselves. So that is why we need the exchanges.

Here they are defunding it today, and H.R. 1213 would repeal the section of the Affordable Care Act that provides funding for the creation and facilitation of State-based health insurance exchanges. Those are not government insurance companies. Those are private sector exchanges.

During the health reform debate, the Republicans spent most of their time saying health reform would limit the ability to tailor their own health care systems. The Affordable Care Act would ensure States would have the ability to create their own health insurance exchanges, meet the health care needs of their State, and still provide consistent basic health coverage nationally.

We provided States with planning grants to come up with proposals on how they will run their health insurance exchanges so States will run their own exchanges rather than the Federal Government doing it. Yet here we are today stripping the ability of the States to run their own health insurance exchanges by eliminating those planning grants, just another example of the hypocrisy of the Republican Party.

This is yet further political messaging by the Republican majority in an attempt to defund health reform. They are playing games with funds

dedicated to our States, forcing them to spend their own money when State budgets are already limited. The majority has the wrong priorities, and I think the American people know it.

Mr. Chair, I rise in opposition to H.R. 1214, which repeals a provision in the Affordable Care Act that provides funding for the construction of school health centers. It also rescinds any unobligated funds that have already been appropriated to this program.

The Majority has said their top priority is job creation and getting our economy back on track. This legislation is yet another example of the Republicans' misplaced priorities.

If the Republicans cared about job creation, they would support school based health centers.

School-based health centers started in the 1970s with the first centers opening in Dallas, Texas, and St. Paul, Minnesota. Today, there are approximately 1,700 centers across the country located in 45 states plus the District of Columbia.

In Texas, there are approximately 85 school-based health centers. Most of these centers are located in a permanent facility on a school campus. The centers provide primary care, mental health care, and dental care.

The reason these school-based health centers are so important to working families is because they support families. They allow parents to stay at work while attending to their child's routine health care needs and they save money for our economy as a whole by keeping children out of hospitals and emergency rooms.

Once again, the Republicans are claiming they support helping our working families and yet again we are cutting another service that helps keep parents at work and children healthy.

I strongly oppose this legislation.

I want to thank my colleague from New York for allowing me to speak.

The gentleman before me was correct: we have lots of options today, and that's great. We have the Republican budget, we have a Democratic budget, we have a Black Caucus budget and we have a Progressive Caucus budget. We have lots of options.

I'm going to talk about the Republican budget.

The Republican proposal we're debating today is reckless and misguided. It slashes taxes for the wealthy and pays for them by gutting Medicare. Let me explain that. It cuts over $30 billion in the first 10 years and will end Medicare by forcing seniors into private health insurance plans after 2022. They're right, if you're 54 years old now and you have high blood pressure and you're diabetic or prediabetic, you won't get Medicare. You'll get a voucher. And insurance companies don't want to cover those of us that may be diabetic or prediabetic or have high blood pressure. They're waiting to get on Medicare. They're not waiting to get a voucher.

It gradually excludes seniors and eventually raises the age to 67 for Medicare. The CBO says that in 2022, the Republican's proposal will more than double the cost paid by Medicare enrollees. We are throwing seniors out of Medicare and into the uncertainty of the private insurance market while providing tax breaks to the wealthy. And it doesn't make sense.

I also represent the Port of Houston, the 10th busiest port in the world. The

port is facing a dredging crisis. Ensuring dredging means ensuring jobs. But the Republican budget contains deep cuts in programs like the Army Corps of Engineers. Dredging cannot be funded privately. It has to come from the Corps and the Federal Government. Hundreds of thousands of jobs not only in our Port of Houston but also across the country under this plan will be put at risk.

There's one high point in the budget, and I commend Chairman Ryan for including language to put NASA on track with the authorization bill Congress passed last year and provide for an immediate transition for our next generation of human space flight program once the shuttle missions are concluded.

Despite that, I'm unable to support the plan that allows massive cuts for the wealthiest Americans and pays for them by ending Medicare while neglecting our ports.

This budget proposal makes over $30 billion in cuts to Medicare over 10 years, seeks to eliminate Medicare, and shifts all seniors over to private insurance plans after 2022.

Beginning in 2022, Congressman Ryan's budget proposal would convert the current Medicare system to a system of premium support payments. Individuals, when they turn 65 and Disability Insurance beneficiaries who become eligible for Medicare in 2022 or later, would not enroll in the current Medicare program but would receive vouchers to purchase private insurance plans. In addition, the proposal would increase the age of eligibility for Medicare for 2 months per year until it reaches 67 in 2033.

According to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Ryan budget proposal would more than double Medicare beneficiary costs in 2022, from $5,538 to $12,513, which is an increase of nearly $7,000 per year in beneficiary premiums and co-insurance. Not one dollar of that increase in beneficiary costs goes to reducing the deficit--it all goes to cover the higher costs of private plans that the Republicans would force seniors to join. Additionally, the average 65-year-old in 2030 would have to pay about 68 percent of their health care costs (through premiums and copayments), compared with 25 percent under current rules.

This is not the type of system we want for our seniors. Shifting individuals from a program like Medicare that works to private insurance plans that are only interested in making a profit is no way to reduce government spending and our deficit. In fact, the Ryan proposal once again shifts the burden of reducing the deficit onto the taxpayer and our seniors.

I represent the Port of Houston, the busiest port in the United States in terms of foreign tonnage, second-busiest in the United States in terms of overall tonnage, and tenth-busiest in the world. Unfortunately, the Port of Houston, like many Ports in this country, is facing a dredging crisis.

In my district, ensuring dredging means ensuring jobs. By maintaining our shipping channel we lower the cost of importing and exporting. We move more commerce through our city and into communities across the country. Workers at distribution centers, longshoremen, truck drivers, tug boat operators, and many other professions rely on a functional port.

The Port has identified over $80 million in dredging needs and they were only receiving $20 million of that in the President's budget request. The Republican Budget contains deep cuts, beyond the President's Budget, to programs like the Army Corps of Engineers. No other entity can fund these dredging projects but the Corps. Hundreds of thousands of jobs rely on the Port of Houston being one of the busiest in the world. Our oil and gas industry relies on a well- maintained, functioning port. It is critical to our economy and our Nation's strategic interests to maintain this port in the best condition possible, but under this plan, the budget will be cut.

We have heard a lot from the Republican side about freeing our private sector to create jobs, but now we see their budget, and we find out this just isn't the case.

While I am disappointed with nearly the Republicans' entire budget, I am pleased with one portion of it. I commend Chairman Ryan for including language that would put NASA on track to follow the Authorization bill Congress passed last year.

The plan in the authorization, and reaffirmed in this budget, would provide for an immediate transition to our next generation human space flight program.

If NASA follows its own plan, human space flight will be put into limbo once the Space Shuttle missions conclude.

By incorporating the compromise of the NASA authorization bill, we can use the valuable work accomplished during the Constellation program for the next generation of human space flight.

We can maximize cost-savings and offer the best value by leveraging tax payer dollars that have already been spent for the biggest benefit. These are goals that we must pursue during such difficult fiscal times.

If we do not effectively guide NASA back toward a plan that is within the confines of the law, it will result in significant duplicative costs and unnecessary job losses.

Local economies, like my own in Houston, home of Johnson Space Center, will be hit hard when we have just begun to recover.

It is estimated by the Human Space Flight industry that at least 10,000 employees will be laid off under the more expensive, less effective, NASA budget proposal.

A failure to maintain preeminence in human space flight will have ripple effects that damage our education system, our technology industry's ability to innovate, and could handicap our global competitiveness for years to come.

We spend so much time talking about the importance of inspiring our students to pursue science, technology, engineering, and math disciplines. NASA serves as the single biggest catalyst for this inspiration.

Under the NASA budget proposal, there will be no new jobs for our STEM students. We must change the trajectory at NASA. The plan in the authorization bill costs less, does more, and will allow our Nation to maintain its role as the leader in space.

Despite this, I am unable to support any plan that allows massive tax cuts for the wealthiest Americans and pays for them by ending Medicare while also neglecting maintaining our Ports, which are critical national interests.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to both this rule and H.R. 1217, the legislation to repeal the Prevention and Public Health Fund of the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act uses Hyde-like language. I was on the Energy and Commerce Committee; I still am. We put it into the Affordable Care Act that there will not be one penny of Federal funds that will go for elective abortions.

The Hyde Act may be on appropriations bills, but the Affordable Care Act has that language in there. I know there is going to be a lot of talk during debate about the legislation and how we need to reduce our deficits, and tough funding cuts will need to be made by Congress in order to bring down our national debt, H.R. 1217 is not meaningful legislation to reduce our debt, nor is it a plan to create jobs or spur the growth in our economy. This legislation is yet another attempt by the majority to dismantle and repeal the Affordable Care Act because they do not have the support to do the straight repeal of health reform.

As a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, I know that this bill would be the first of several pieces that will mark a reversal of position by the majority on what has been previously bipartisan- supported health care concepts.

I have worked across the aisle for years with my colleagues on many prevention provisions, including Prevention and Public Health Fund that would fund the integration of primary care services into publicly funded mental and behavioral health settings. To date, Texas alone has received $495,000 for this program. I introduced this legislation for several years with bipartisan support from Representative Tim Murphy. At the time it was called the Community Mental Health Services Improvement Act. And yet here we are today rolling back funding on these important bipartisan provisions to fulfill campaign promises.

We know that prevention programs will ultimately save our health care system in the future. What we did with the Prevention and Public Health Fund in the Affordable Care Act was to make a down payment on reducing preventable health conditions such as diabetes, obesity, strokes, and heart disease. The fund represents an unprecedented investment--$15 billion over 10 years--that will help prevent disease, detect it early, and manage conditions before they become severe. By concentrating on the causes of chronic disease, the Affordable Care Act helps move the Nation from a focus on sickness and disease to one based on wellness and prevention.

Don't let the majority fool you today by saying this legislation is a cost-saving measure. Several things that they won't be highlighting in relation to this legislation are the cost of treating these chronic diseases in Texas alone totaled over $17.2 billion, and chronic diseases resulted in $75.3 billion in lost productivity and economic costs to Texas.

If we want to have a debate on saving money and creating jobs, I would like the majority to show us their job-creating and deficit- reduction plan. They have been in power for 100 days, and we have spent most of the time by creating more debt by repealing provisions in health reform that would actually save my State billions of dollars. Today is yet another example of the majority's misguided priorities.

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 250, had I been present, I would have voted ``nay.''

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to H.R. 910.

On April 2, 2007, the Supreme Court in Massachusetts v. EPA held that greenhouse gases, including carbon dioxide, are ``air pollutants'' under the Clean Air Act. As a result, the EPA was legally obligated to determine whether greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles could be reasonably anticipated to endanger public health or welfare. If the EPA made a positive finding, then it would also have to issue regulations to reduce such emissions.

On December 7, 2009, the EPA issued its endangerment finding. The finding was based on a 200-page synthesis of major scientific assessments authored by not only the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, but also by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, the U.S. Navy, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, the National Research Council, NOAA, NASA, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the CDC, the U.S. Geological Survey, the National Snow and Ice Data Center, and others. The EPA's scientific basis for the finding was extensively reviewed by, among others, a group of leading scientists from federal agencies.

In order to limit the number of industrial sources that would be subject to regulation, the EPA issued its ``Tailoring Rule'' last May which raised the Clean Air Act statutory thresholds to require greenhouse gas permitting only for the largest industrial sources of greenhouse gas emissions from 100/250 tons to 100,000 tons per year.

In response to these actions, House Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton introduced the Energy Tax Prevention Act to strip the EPA of its authority to regulate carbon under the Clean Air Act.

My two largest concerns with the bill is that it overturns both the Supreme Court's finding that the EPA has the authority to regulate greenhouse gases under the Clean Air Act and the EPA's scientific determination that greenhouse gases endanger human health and the environment.

By doing this, the Energy Tax Prevention Act could also: prohibit EPA from enforcing existing greenhouse gas reporting requirements; prevent EPA from taking impacts on climate change into consideration when approving alternatives to ozone depleting substances under Title VI of the Clean Air Act and the Montreal Protocol; create legal uncertainty about the status of the recent motor vehicle standards adopted by EPA; and call into question EPA's authority to implement voluntary programs to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

I must emphasize that I am opposed to the EPA moving forward with regulations on large utilities and refineries in our country, because I believe that the Congress should be the decision maker on carbon control issues. However, we cannot discount the Supreme Court decision, say climate change is not an issue and move on with it, which is the approach the Energy Tax Prevention Act takes. Instead, we should pass a bill that would delay the EPA from moving forward with these regulations so that the Congress has time to address this issue with input from Members that represent diverse constituencies nationwide.

So I ask my colleagues on the other side of the aisle to provide leadership on this front. Let's address carbon so that we don't have to worry about what the EPA is doing and whether they will be sued by outside groups to further regulate these industries or move up already announced dates for rulemaking. This Congress has the power to be 100% in control of giving our manufacturing base the regulatory certainty it needs. Cap and Trade legislation will not pass this Congress, but I believe a solution can be found for controlling carbon emissions by using nuclear and natural gas to generate electricity.

As such, I encourage my colleagues to vote against this bill and instead, let us pass into law a bipartisan, comprehensive carbon control program that regulates emissions with the least disruption to our economy.