Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, I want to compliment Chairman Markey for referring to Mr. Upton as ``Chairman Upton.'' That may be a foreteller of things to come, and we appreciate his prescience in acknowledging that possibility.

Mr. Speaker, I do rise in support of H.R. 5026, the Grid Reliability and Infrastructure Defense Act, better known as the GRID Act.

This is an example of legislation that has come to the floor after a 47-0 bipartisan vote in the Energy and Commerce Committee that shows what the Congress can do when Republicans are allowed into the room to help draft and put into place legislation. While it is a rare occasion in this Congress, it certainly is something that both sides of the aisle can be proud of.

I want to especially commend Subcommittee Chairman Markey, Full Committee Chairman Waxman, Ranking Member Upton, and others on both sides of the aisle to make this day possible.

Our electric grid is increasingly vulnerable to cyber attack, and if a nation-state or a terrorist group were successful in crippling our electric grid, it would have devastating consequences for our economy and our national defense. We've read news stories reporting allegations that spies may have penetrated the mechanisms that control our power supplies.

Cybersecurity experts report that the ``smart grid'' we are counting on to improve reliability and enhance consumer choices could also increase our exposure to hackers in places like China and Russia. Our defense community is concerned about possible electromagnetic attacks from terrorist or hostile countries. We must take substantive action to address the susceptibility of our electric systems to such attacks. The stakes are just too high for us to do nothing.

The GRID Act, Mr. Speaker, takes care of all these problems.

I appreciate the ranking member's yielding additional time.

The GRID Act would shield both our bulk power system and the infrastructure serving critical defense facilities. The legislation authorizes the President to address imminent grid security threats through the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, better known as FERC. It would give FERC the authority to issue notice-and-comment rule to address grid security vulnerabilities.

As Mr. Markey pointed out, this bill is revenue-neutral. It does not increase the Federal deficit in any shape, form, or fashion. It is worthy of support.

I want to repeat again, it came out the Energy and Commerce Committee 47-0. I hope the House will unanimously vote for this and send it to the other body.

I thank my friend from Dallas.

It embarrasses me when my colleague from Vermont says nice things about me, since I'm opposing this bill. I will say before I list some of my concerns that there was a lot of input asked for and received by Republicans both in the committee and outside of the committee.

This is not a terribly bad bill, but it has one fatal flaw: It is not paid for. It, in my opinion, authorizes and, if the authorization is actually appropriated, spends more money than we need to be spending in an era of $1.5 trillion per year budget deficits.

Mr. Latta of Ohio did offer a pay-for amendment at committee. It simply said that this bill must not increase the deficit. There was some discussion. Mr. Latta was asked to withdraw. The chairman, Mr. Waxman, said he would work with Mr. Latta. There were kind of desultory conversations at the staff level, until yesterday, after a markup of another bill, which at that time Chairman Waxman did sit down with Congressman Latta and myself. There were fairly serious discussions yesterday afternoon. Those discussions were not satisfactory to either side.

The end result was that Mr. Latta went to the Rules Committee and offered his original amendment that he had withdrawn in committee. In its infinite wisdom, the Rules Committee chose not to make the most important amendment requested, in my opinion, in order. They made an amendment in order by myself, which is an okay amendment. So I thank Congresswoman Matsui and the other Democrats on the Rules Committee for accepting that amendment.

But the crux of it, in an era with $1.5 trillion annual deficits, any new program, no matter how good, we should pay for it. If it's an authorization bill, we should put in the authorization bill that it should be paid for, that it will be paid for.

Now, the circuitous argument was: since this is an authorization bill, doesn't cost anything, you don't need a pay-for. Well, why not set the precedent? Let's make it a point as this Congress, if we really are concerned about the deficit, let's say, if we start a new program, we'll pay for it, and tell the Appropriations Committee and the Budget Committee we want this paid for. Now, Republicans want to pay for it by reducing wasteful spending.

I ask for a ``no'' vote on the rule.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

(Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Chair, the bill before us today is not a bad piece of legislation. Mr. Ehlers, for example, of Michigan is one of the Republican cosponsors of it. Mr. Welch of Vermont has sought assistance across the aisle. Mr. Markey, Mr. Waxman, the full committee and subcommittee chairmen, have taken a number of amendments in subcommittee and full committee and I think generally worked in good faith.

Having said that, here we go again, Madam Chair. It's Thursday. This is the only bill this week that we are going to have a rule on. This is an authorization bill, as Chairman Waxman just said, but it authorizes $6.6 billion to be spent over a 2-year period, and makes no attempt to find a way to pay for it. So it's another new program with all the right feel-good intentions, but it's all hat and no cattle as we would say down in Texas.

In committee, Chairman Waxman, to his credit, did say that the bill should be paid for. He did encourage Congressman Latta of Ohio, who offered a pay-for amendment that the bill would be paid for, if he would withdraw it he would work with him, and yesterday we did have some discussions with the chairman on how to pay for it. Those discussions did not provide a satisfactory conclusion to either side, so Mr. Latta went to the Rules Committee and asked that his amendment be made in order. Eight amendments were made in order, but his amendment was not, Madam Chair.

Chairman Waxman is correct when he says this is an authorization bill so you don't have to have a pay-for. That is true in a technical sense. But I think it's time for this Congress and certainly our committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee, to show the American people that, if we want to create new programs, we don't want to increase the deficit, borrow money to pay for them. We should be able to find a pay-for.

Just as it's true that it's not technically necessary because this is an authorization bill, it's also true that we could set a precedent and set a practice at least in our committee, the Energy and Commerce Committee, of saying if we are going to create new programs we are going to show where the money should come from.

There is not a real need for this program at this point in time. In the so-called stimulus package earlier in this

Congress and in the last Congress, we authorized and I think even appropriated $5 billion in weatherization funds and grants for the Department of Energy. Now, that program operates a little bit differently than the program in this bill would operate if enacted into law. But we can't tell that the Department of Energy, Madam Chair, has spent any of that money that's already been authorized and appropriated. And that's $5 billion. Why have another $6.6 billion program when you haven't successfully implemented the current $5 billion program? Again, that weatherization program is somewhat different in the way it's structured than the pending bill, but the goals of it are very, very similar to this bill.

The definition of insanity, Madam Chair, is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. That appears to be what we are doing here today with the Home Star Energy Retrofit Act. It's another chapter in saying one thing, trying to put something out that looks good, feels good, but doesn't really have the substance to back it up.

So I have great respect for the authors of the legislation, great respect for the leadership of my committee on the majority side, but I don't believe we should authorize a $6 billion program without a pay- for or an indication of how we intend to pay for it. I think that's too much, and I think it's bad public policy with a deficit of $1.5 trillion.

We will support some of the amendments, Madam Chair. There are eight amendments. As the ranking member of the full committee, I believe I am going to recommend a ``yes'' vote on six of the eight, maybe seven. But on final passage I will recommend a ``no'' vote.

Madam Chair, we'd be hard-pressed to find a single Member of Congress who thinks energy efficiency is a bad idea. Everybody wants to lower energy consumption because we want to cut our electricity bills. Additionally, manufacturing and installing energy efficient products for the home can be a boon for businesses and jobs across the country. The market works.

Home Star will cost taxpayers $6.6 billion over the next 2 years. With the tidal wave of spending that has roared out of Washington over the last 18 months, sometimes $6.6 billion might not sound like much, and that's exactly why we need to start looking at programs like Home Star much more carefully.

Without a payment mechanism in H.R. 5019, what we have is an authorization that simply instructs the Federal Government to spend $6.6 billion over the next 2 years. Then we here in Congress are supposed to figure out where to get the money. Who believes that's going to happen? This legislative artifice defies the majority's own Pay-As-You-Go rule, not to mention the public's trust, and it assures that deficits will go on expanding.

It didn't have to be that way. Our newest colleague on the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Latta of Ohio, offered an amendment in the markup that would apply Pay-Go rules to this legislation. It was withdrawn through an agreement with the committee chairman that spending details would be worked out before H.R. 5019 reached the House Floor. Yet here we are today, still without a way to pay for this program.

This is not the first government program we've examined in the 111th Congress to encourage home energy efficiency. In the so-called Stimulus Bill, Congress authorized $5 billion for home weatherization funds and grants. After an entire year, the Department of Energy has admitted to accomplishing virtually nothing with this amount of money. How are we to believe DOE can handle $6.6 billion for a newly-created program when it has proven it can't handle $5 billion to complement a program that already exists?

Like the $5 billion in weatherization funds, Home Star is supposed to create jobs. But if past is prologue, we are right to be skeptical of such a claim. While the stimulus bill was being debated, the economic alchemists in the White House told us it would cap unemployment at 8 percent. This was supposed to be achieved partially through dramatic expansion of government programs like home weatherization. But thanks to Obama administration bureaucracy and the built-in inefficiency of all government programs, the money has been spent without taxpayers getting the benefits that their money was supposed to buy.

The definition of insanity is repeating the same action over and over and expecting a different result, and that's precisely what we're doing here today with the Home Star Energy Retrofit Act. It's another chapter in the story of the Obama administration: Excitement followed by spending followed by disappointment.

In a time of exploding deficits, bumbling government and economic recession, Congress could do America a favor by paying for the programs it enacts. We should begin today.

Until we are willing to pay for it, I urge my colleagues to vote ``no'' on this bill.

With that, I ask unanimous consent that Mr. Upton of Michigan control the balance of the time on the minority side.

Madam Chair, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

We do oppose the manager's amendment, Madam Chair. It is a good-faith attempt to try to perfect some of the anomalies within it. It's fairly long-winded. It's fairly complicated, because when the government starts to intervene in the marketplace, it has to intervene more and more pervasively to try to handle all of the various things that normally the hidden hand of the market, to quote Adam Smith, would correct or take care of.

So, if you support the underlying bill, you should support the manager's amendment because it is trying to correct the problems which those who support it have seen in the underlying bill. If you don't support the underlying bill, which I do not, you should oppose the Waxman amendment because here is a program, again, which is spending $6.6 billion--or at least is authorizing the spending of $6.6 billion, which we don't have, which has no pay-for, and the Department of Energy has a $5 billion program currently on the books that has been appropriated for which they've not yet handed out the money.

So we oppose Chairman Waxman's manager's amendment and would ask for a ``no'' vote.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I have no further speakers on this amendment. I request a ``no'' vote.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Chair, I have an amendment at the desk.

Madam Chair, this amendment is fairly straightforward. It would strike section 111(g), which provides that funds repaid by eligible participants may be used to provide loans to additional participants under the Home Star Energy Efficiency Loan Program. In other words, under the pending legislation, if people were to get a loan and use that loan, when that loan was paid back, the funds that are paid back could then be relent. My amendment would strike the relending provision so that as the funds are paid back, they would go to the Treasury, hopefully for deficit reduction.

Since section 111 is carved out of the sunset section, section 112(i), this loan program could potentially go on forever with money that is repaid continually being loaned out to new recipients. So we could create, under this new section 111(g) if we don't accept the Barton amendment, a perpetual program, in effect, a new, self-funded entitlement program. This bill is billed as a 2-year temporary program, but the provision in 111(g) is contrary to the 2-year sunset provision of the overall bill. So I would hope that we would accept this amendment.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield myself such time as I may consume, subject to the 5-minute limitation.

As always, Madam Chairwoman, I am deeply moved by my friend from Massachusetts' eloquent words. The problem is nothing he said really directly relates to the Barton amendment. We're not striking the loan program. We're not changing the authorization level. We're not saying that low-income homeowners who wish to use the program cannot borrow funds under this bill if it becomes a law. What we are saying is that once they've borrowed the funds, once they've been spent in the proper fashion, and hopefully once they've been repaid, the repaid funds will go towards deficit reduction.

Since this is an authorization bill, and since it's not funded anyway, according to the distinguished chairman, you would think that they would be willing to accept a small Barton amendment that simply says, if the program is ever funded, and if it actually is implemented, as people use it and pay the money back, that money goes to pay the poor taxpayers back who have labored long and hard to pay the taxes that make the program possible in the first place.

So, again, I am deeply moved by my friend from Massachusetts, but I hope that he is as deeply moved by my remarks and would change his position and support the Barton amendment.

I reserve the balance of my time

May I inquire as to how much time I have remaining?

I yield myself 2 minutes.

Well, my esteemed colleague from Massachusetts is at least talking about my amendment now. That's progress. He used the term ``black hole.'' I'm sure he knows, since scientists at MIT in his home State have investigated black holes extensively, that there is mounting evidence that the universe could not exist without black holes. So I think it would be appropriate in this bill to put at least one black hole in this because it would enhance the viability of the overall program.

Again, we are trying to protect the taxpayers who are putting up the money or the loan officers who are sending the money to the U.S. Treasury in terms of government bonds to pay for this program. We are not attempting to change the loan program. We think the loan program itself is an excellent idea if you're going to have this type of a program. We simply want to protect the taxpayers and also point out, once again, that the underlying bill is a 2-year bill. We don't want a self-perpetuating loan program that would take on the form of an entitlement.

So vote for the Barton black hole amendment, and let's put some limitation on taxpayer liability.

With that, I am going to reserve what little time, if any, I have left.

How much time do I have remaining, Madam Chair?

I yield myself the final 30 seconds.

Madam Chair, only my friend from Massachusetts could filibuster in a 5-minute time-limited debate.

Those last comments, as far as I could tell and to the extent they were substantive, were absolutely true. We do eliminate subsection G, and that is all we eliminate. That is the section that creates the reloan provision. So he is right about that. I think he is misinformed about the rest of his comments, and I would hope that he would support the elimination of one little subsection, subsection G.

Vote ``yes'' on the Barton amendment.

I commend the Chair for her fairness in calling that last vote. I appreciate that sincerely.

Madam Chair, I rise to claim time in opposition, although I am not opposed to the amendment.

Madam Chair, the minority has no objection to this amendment. We support it and would urge its passage.

I yield back the balance of my time.

I thank the gentleman from Texas. I am not going to consume a lot of time.

Madam Chair, I simply want to say this is a $12 million advertising campaign for free government money or loans at very low interest rates.

Bees don't need directions to find where the flowers are that they're going to pollinate to get the honey and to go back to the hive. Bank robbers don't need directions on how to find the banks where the money is.

Homeowners and contractors who qualify under this program don't need a $12 million program to find out where and how to get the money. As Dr. Burgess pointed out, they will be immediately on the Internet, on the various Web sites, and on the toll-free hotline numbers, and all the other various things finding out how, where, and what the requirements are.

If all else fails, they can call Congressman Markey's office, and he will be happy to provide them with free assistance. If his office is overloaded, since mine is right next door, I will put them on a waiting list and will get back to them within 5 to 10 years.

So I support the Burgess amendment, and I would hope that we would adopt it.

Madam Chair, I rise in support of the Deutch amendment.

In the spirit of trying to get Members who wish to catch 3 o'clock planes out of town by 3 o'clock, the minority is prepared to accept the Deutch amendment and would encourage the majority in the same spirit to limit their comments on the upcoming Republican amendments so that all Members, regardless of party affiliation, may spend the evening at home in their districts with their loved ones.

We support the Deutch amendment.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I have a motion to recommit at the desk.

Mr. Speaker, in its current form I am.

I thank the distinguished Speaker.

Now that the Members know exactly what is in the motion to recommit-- I am sure you all listened to every word that the Clerk read--let me explain it in Texas terms very quickly before I yield to Mr. Latta.

The first thing that the motion to recommit would do would be to sunset the legislation if it has a negative effect on the Federal budget deficit. Mr. Latta is going to speak about that in a second.

It would change the rebate mechanism in the pending bill so that the money would go to the homeowner instead of to the contractor. We think this would be more efficient and less susceptible to fraud.

It strikes the $12 million EPA public information campaign which was the purpose of the Burgess amendment which was defeated earlier.

It strikes the $324 million Home Star energy efficiency loan program.

It would exclude pool heaters from the Gold Star program. If people have enough money to have a home swimming pool in their backyard, they probably don't need a government program for a home swimming pool heater.

It would disqualify participation by homeowners with a gross annual income of over $250,000. As President Obama has pointed out, if you make more than $250,000, you're doing pretty well.

It would require qualified contractors to certify that no employee they employ has been convicted of a crime of child molestation, rape, or any other form of sexual assault.

And, finally, it would prohibit any use of the Home Star funds for folks on government business traveling to areas where there are establishments for gaming.

With that, I would yield to my good friend from Ohio (Mr. Latta) for him to talk a little more about his specific deficit reduction amendment.

Mr. Speaker, the substantive parts of the motion to recommit are pretty straightforward. It would sunset the legislation if there is a negative net effect on the Federal budget deficit. That is the Latta language that we have already spoken to.

It would change the rebate mechanisms so that the rebates go to the homeowner and not to the contractor. This would limit fraud and abuse.

It strikes the $12 million EPA public information campaign. As I pointed out in my floor statement, bees know where the honey is, bank robbers know where the bank is, teenage boys know where the teenage girls are, the public will know how to get this money.

And finally, it strikes the Home Star energy efficiency loan program. We already have record defaults in the home mortgage industry. We don't need to be leveraging that any bit more. With that, I would ask for a ``yes'' vote on the motion to recommit.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Would the gentleman yield briefly for an answer to his question?

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

Mr. Speaker, the First Amendment gives the American people the right to petition the Congress for redress of grievances and to express freedom of speech.

Several weeks ago, the chairman of the committee that I serve as a ranking member on, Energy and Commerce, Chairman Henry Waxman, sent a letter to several U.S. corporations for having the temerity to express their displeasure with the health care bill and to inform their employees and stockholders of the consequences of that piece of legislation. He has opened an investigation into those companies, and we have a hearing next week.

Two days ago, Chairman Waxman sent a letter to the American Farm Bureau, opening an investigation into their activities expressing their displeasure with the EPA endangerment finding and the pending cap and trade legislation in the United States Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I am very concerned when one of the premier committee chairmen of our great House of Representatives appears to be using his power to intimidate Americans from expressing their First Amendment rights to petition the Congress for redress of grievances. I think that's a sad state of affairs, and I think that is something that maybe should be investigated.

I think it's time for us to take a deep breath, take a timeout and go home and listen, Mr. Speaker. So I asked the Rules Committee this evening to not move this package tonight, but let us go home for the next 2 weeks and then come back week after next or week after 2 weeks and actually fix what needs to be fixed.

I listened when my chairman, Mr. Waxman of California, talked about the reconciliation package before us fixes the Nebraska problem. Well, the way they fix it, Mr. Speaker, is by giving every other State the same sweet deal they gave to Nebraska but only for 4 years.

After 2014, that deal goes away for Nebraska and every other State. I don't think that's much of a fix.

No one on the majority side, Mr. Speaker, has talked about the Medicaid trap. When this fully kicks in in 2014, everybody that's eligible for Medicaid in the country, that is below 133 percent of poverty, has to be in Medicaid and that's their only choice. They cannot be in a private sector plan. And obviously we all know they don't have the option of not taking the coverage.

Some of us think that that may be unconstitutional. Even if it's not unconstitutional, I don't think it's fair to our low-income Americans to say that the only health insurance plan you can have is Medicaid.

We have talked about the preexisting conditions, Mr. Speaker. This bill does require that preexisting conditions be covered. That's a good thing, not a bad thing. But it's not funded. They have only got $5 billion in this bill for 4 years. That's a little over a billion dollars a year. You can't cover 8 to 10 million Americans that have preexisting conditions and no insurance today for $1.25 billion a year. I call that the preexisting short sheet.

And, finally, this reconciliation package doesn't do anything to prevent the requirement in the original Senate bill that's now the law that elective funding of abortion be offered in at least one plan in each State. I really believe if there was an up-or-down vote on that again in this body, that that would be voted down.

Please vote against this reconciliation package rule. Let us go home and listen to our constituents.

``Unorthodox Process'': My friend from California Mr. Dreier coined the process and procedure that has been forced upon as ``at best, unorthodox.'' But it doesn't have to be that way, Mr. Speaker. There is no deadline that says we need to push this through tonight. Let's do it right.

Hoping for similar luck to have I had last Saturday when I asked that Rules drop the ``deem and pass'' scheme and they did, I asked this afternoon in the Rules Committee for an extension on this reconciliation vote until after the two-week recess. We could talk to our constituents, hear their thoughts. We could look for more issues that will need fixing and then fix them. There is no deadline that says we need to push this through tonight. Let's do it right.

The new version of the reconciliation package that we vote on today reflects two relatively minor changes made by the Senate to education program provisions in the bill. We had to strike these provisions because they violated the Byrd Rule that governs budget reconciliation bills in the Senate. But that's the point, Mr. Speaker. We rushed, rushed, rushed and made mistakes. I shudder at the thought of the additional mistakes we'll need to fix as we finally have time to digest this massive law.

My Democrat colleagues insist that the Senate bill is law, signed by the President, and that there should be no more debate on the policy. But just because it received an entirely partisan majority, and just because it was signed by the President, doesn't mean it's good law. This was a partisan process, a partisan bill, with bipartisan opposition.

This Act increases the penalty on individuals who fail to comply with the new requirement to maintain Washington-bureaucrat-approved insurance coverage:

Modifies the individual mandate penalty in three ways: (1) exempts income below the filing threshold from the calculation of the penalty, (2) lowers the flat dollar penalty from $495 to $325 in 2015, and from $750 to $695 in 2016, and (3) for individuals paying a penalty based on family income, changes the penalty from 0.5% to 1.0% of family income in 2014, from 1.0% to 2.0% of family income in 2015, and from 2.0% to 2.5% of family income for 2016 and later years.

This Act increases the penalty on employers who fail to comply with the new requirement to buy their employees Washington-bureaucrat- approved insurance coverage:

Increases the annual per-employer penalty from $750 per employee to $2,000 per employee, and subtracts 30 full-time employees from the penalty calculation (e.g., a firm with 100 employees would have to pay

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Alabama for a unanimous consent request.

(Mr. ROGERS of Alabama asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from North Carolina for a unanimous consent request.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Minnesota for a unanimous consent request.

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

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Georgia, the ranking member of the Health Subcommittee, Mr. Deal, for 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Upton) for 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, I yield for a unanimous consent request to a member of the committee from the Keystone State of Pennsylvania, Dr. Murphy.

Madam Speaker, I yield for 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns).

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from the bluegrass State of Kentucky (Mr. Whitfield).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg).

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Bono Mack).

Madam Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

It has been agreed to, I am told, by the Parliamentarian and others, that if I yield to Mr. Sensenbrenner 2 minutes right now, it will come out of Leader Boehner's time.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner).

Madam Speaker, I would yield 30 seconds to the gentleman from Oklahoma (Mr. Sullivan).

I'd like to yield 1 minute to one of our best pro-life leaders in the House of Representatives, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts).

Can I inquire as to the time remaining on each side for the Energy and Commerce Committee's control.

I yield 45 seconds to the gentleman from Nebraska, the Cornhusker State, Mr. Terry.

I would like to yield for a unanimous consent request to Mr. Rogers of Kentucky.

(Mr. ROGERS of Kentucky asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I would like to yield for a unanimous consent request to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), a member of the committee.

(Mrs. BLACKBURN asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I would like to yield for a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from the Peach State of Georgia, Dr. Gingrey.

(Mr. GINGREY of Georgia asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, I would like to yield for a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from the Pelican State, Mr. Scalise, another member of the committee.

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

And, finally, Madam Speaker, I yield 45 seconds to another member of the committee, the distinguished Mr. Mike Rogers from the great State of Michigan.

How much time do I have remaining, please, Madam Speaker?

I am going to yield to the gentleman from Texas, Dr. Burgess, 15 of those precious 55 seconds.

I yield myself the balance of my time.

(Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Madam Speaker, this bill will not last. It is based on a fatal assumption that one party acting unilaterally can dictate the entire will of the American people on one-sixth of the economy. That will not happen. It reignites the abortion debate. It is fatally flawed in its assumptions in terms of balancing the budget and deficit reduction, and it will take away coverage from millions of people if it gets as far as 2014 and you kick in the option that puts all these mandates on employers.

Please vote ``no.'' Let's go back, start over. Let's start from scratch and do a bill that everybody can support. Vote ``no'' on this bill.

I recognize myself for 1 minute, Madam Speaker.

I appreciate the Chair insisting on regular order. It's nice that we have that. That's a good thing, not a bad thing.

I am going to yield myself, Madam Speaker, 1 minute.

We are here today because sometime this morning the majority decided, or at least they decided to inform the minority, to extend a number of bills, several of which are primary jurisdictional to the Energy and Commerce Committee, of which I am the ranking member. Probably the most important of the bills in terms of economic impact in the short term is the physician reimbursement fix, the DRG fix. If I understand this bill correctly, it has been extended for another month.

We also have the Satellite Home Viewer Reauthorization Act, which is totally within the jurisdiction of the Energy and Commerce Committee. And it is also being extended for 1 month.

Madam Speaker, we don't have to do this kind of thing. If we could really get to regular order, we could bring these bills up, we could work in a bipartisan fashion, and we could find permanent or at least annual solutions to these bills. We don't have to hully gully this type of thing.

I yield myself an additional 15 seconds.

And to be told at 10 o'clock this morning about this bill, which is a compilation of several bills, is just a disservice to the American people.

With that, I would like to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Telecommunications and the Internet, Mr. Cliff Stearns of Florida.

Madam Speaker, I yield the gentleman an additional 15 seconds.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

It may have been explained before I got on the floor, so if I am repeating something that has already been said, I want to apologize in advance. But I do want the American people to know what this bill does. It is a bill that takes eight existing laws, and as I understand it, extends them for 1 month. It takes the unemployment insurance fund, extends it for a month; the COBRA premium assistance fund, extends it for a month; the Medicare physician freeze, it prohibits that for another month--or the cut to physician reimbursement under Medicare. An extension of Medicare therapy caps, extension for a month. A very unusual situation where we are going to use 2009 poverty numbers instead of 2010 poverty numbers, because apparently in 2010 the poverty level in the United States went down, so the majority wants to use 2009 numbers so that there will be larger payments for some of the poverty programs, which is interesting given that the deficit is over a trillion dollars this year.

An extension of the National Flood Insurance Program, extension of the Satellite Television Home Viewer Act, a program out of the transportation committee to repay furloughed workers on highway projects, those are the eight current laws that are being extended. There is also a technical fix on health IT in terms of the definition of doctors that worked for hospitals or worked for clinics.

None of these issues, Madam Speaker, needs to be addressed in the type of an omnibus extension on such a short term. Every one of these on its own has merit. Every one of these on its own could come to the floor in a bipartisan fashion and be debated and probably pass for longer than 1 month.

I am trying to understand why the three bills that are in the committee of jurisdiction that I am the ranking member of, the Energy and Commerce Committee, that's the Medicare Physician Freeze, the Medicare Therapy Caps Extension, and the Satellite Television Home Viewers Act, why those three bills have to come to the floor for 1 month in this fashion.

I don't know when the majority decided to do this. I know that the minority staff was informed of it at approximately 10 o'clock this morning. We're now on the floor at 3:15 in the afternoon.

Take aside the merits of the programs on policy and process alone, we should vote these down on suspension. In a week in which the American public is expressing legitimate outrage because the majority is contemplating bringing the biggest domestic policy bill of this Congress, i.e., the health care reform package, to the floor under a rule that would have a self-executing feature to it where we would deem something passed if we pass the rule, it would seem to me that the Speaker and the majority leader and the committee chairman would not want to pile insult onto insult and bring these bills to the floor under a process where you combine bills from numerous committees of jurisdiction with no notice, for all intents and purposes, and bring them to the floor. At least in this case we are going to get an up-or- down vote on the bill, which is a good thing. But it's not a vote on the rule that self-executes. So I want to commend Chairwoman Slaughter of the Rules Committee for that and Speaker Pelosi.

But again, we don't have to operate, the United States of America, like we're a third-world country that doesn't know how to run a democracy.

Again, on the merits, Republicans have said for physician reimbursement we believe there should be a fix. We believe that the physicians need to be reimbursed in a fair fashion in the current Medicare reimbursement system. We support some of these therapy cap reforms. We certainly support the Satellite Television Home Viewer Act. So this isn't something that the only way to do it is to put it together in a big package and put it on the floor 1 month at a time. The only advantage I can see is that this just kind of treads water; it provides some sort of a vote this afternoon.

I would yield myself 30 additional seconds.

So I guess the other thing that I need to point out to Members of the body and to the American public is, because of the procedure, this is all deemed, apparently--and I hate to use that word. This is all defined to be emergency, and so it's not paid for.

The rule that brought these bills to the floor waives PAYGO, and my recollection is not too many months ago my friends in the majority were beating themselves and congratulating themselves because they had instituted these tough PAYGO rules. But if I am correct, I believe that none of this is paid for and the rule does not require PAYGO.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

How much time do I still have?

I would yield 1 minute to a distinguished member of the Energy and Commerce Committee from Flower Mound and Denton, Texas, Dr. Michael Burgess.

Madam Speaker, we have all seen the television program ``Deal or No Deal'' where you look at this case and you decide whether you want that case or you don't want the case and take the deal or not take the deal. Well, that's what we have, except this time, the Speaker of the House is saying that there may not even be a case, we don't want you to know what's in the case, we just want you to vote for this self-executing rule so that whatever happens happens.

Well, that self-executing rule, Madam Speaker, is well named, because the people that vote for it are probably going to be victims of their own execution at the next congressional election.

Let's have an up-or-down vote, just as the President has suggested, on a real bill, and make people accountable in their congressional districts whether they are for this massive health care bill, a government takeover of health care, or whether they want to keep the current system of private markets, private initiative and the market- based health care system.

Do not make us vote on the self-executing rule.

I rise in support and honor of the late Congressman Charlie Wilson of the Second Congressional District of Texas. I didn't know Congressman Wilson in his salad days. I didn't get elected until 1984. By that time, he had calmed down, apparently quite a bit. But I can now state it, since the statute of limitations has expired, I voted for Congressman Wilson six times. I lived in east Texas, in Crockett, Texas, in Houston County, in the Second Congressional District, and we didn't have a Republican primary, and I don't recall that we had a Republican opponent against Congressman Wilson in the time that I lived in Crockett. And so my choice was to vote for him or not vote at all. I chose to vote for him.

I never went to one of his town hall meetings down at the courthouse on the square because I felt like he was doing a very good job for those constituents in east Texas, including myself. He was a strong defender of the military, very strong on what we call Texas values. He worked quite a bit on the Big Thicket in east Texas. He was an environmentalist ahead of his time.

When I got elected in 1984, I made it a point to get to know Congressman Wilson, or Charlie Wilson, because I had been his constituent and I knew of his reputation. I just felt like he would be a good guy to get to know. And he was. He was a really, really good person. When his mother died, I felt as a

courtesy that I should attend the funeral so that there would be some Texas Congressmen at his mother's funeral in Trinity, Texas. As it turned out, I was the only Congressman that attended. I went up to him. And we didn't really know each other that well, but I said, Charlie, I'm here if you need me to do anything. I didn't really know your mother very well, but I know she must have been a good woman if you were her son. And he never forgot that. From then on, anything I needed from Congressman Wilson, if he could do it, he did it. But he also asked you things.

I will never forget out on the steps of the Capitol one time he came up to me and he said, Joe I need a favor. I said, What is it, Charlie? He said, Well, I need a Republican sponsor for an amendment in the Appropriations Committee. I said, Okay. What is it? He said, I can't tell you. I said, Well, how much money is it? He said, I can't tell you. I said, Well, how many years is it? He said, I can't tell you. I said, Well what can you tell me? He said, If you do this for me, I will do almost anything you want in the Appropriations Committee for you. So I didn't know. To this day, I don't know what that amendment was. But after reading some of the history of that time and that era, my assumption is that I was the Republican sponsor of an amendment that got funding for the black box programs in Afghanistan for Stinger missiles. Now I don't know that, Madam Speaker, but that's kind of the way he operated.

Another story I can tell you is that I was standing here back behind the rail one afternoon and we had a series of votes going on, and Charlie came up to me and he said, What are you doing in a month or so? I said, I don't know. He said, Well, I'm going to take a little trip. I said, Where are you going? He said, We'll go anywhere you want to go. I said, Where do you want to go? He said, Well, I have to go to Afghanistan, and I have to go to Morocco. And if you'll come with me, after that we'll go anywhere you want to go. I said, Well, I'll think about it. Well, I asked my chief of staff and she said no. I asked my wife, and she said no. So then I had to tell Congressman Wilson that I couldn't go. That's the trip that he took the Miss World on where he ended up going to Afghanistan.

Another story that I can tell you is that a couple of us Congressmen were walking down the street one day, and we saw Congressman Wilson walking over to the Capitol, and he had this very strikingly beautiful young woman that he was walking with. Congressman Dan Burton said, Charlie, that woman is as pretty as Miss Universe. And he says, It is Miss Universe. And it was.

He also loved cats--I mean the four-legged cats. They ran all over his office and all over the Rayburn building on the floor. As far as I know, House Administration never chastised him. When you walked into his office, right after Afghanistan, he had a live Stinger missile. He was very proud of that.

I see that my time is about to expire. So for all of his family members and constituents, there were a lot of Republicans that loved Charlie Wilson. He will be missed. He was a great patriot, a great son of Texas, and somebody that those who knew him, he was very, very loyal to. So God bless Charlie Wilson and his family.

Will the gentleman yield?

As a sixth-generation native Texan, I want to commend you for honoring Texas Independence Day, March 2, the 174th birthday of the Republic of Texas. I commend you for the fine work that you do, not just for your constituency in the Houston area, but for the entire State and America.

God bless you, Congressman Poe.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to the CALM Act.

While I, too, would like to have someone turn down the TV when it gets loud, I've already given that job to my thumb. As a result, I only need one Member of Congress at work on this vital problem, not 435. I appreciate Ms. Eshoo's efforts to protect America's ears from loud commercials and our thumbs from arthritis brought on by overuse, but writing a law to do so seems a stretch.

The bill adopts into Federal law the industry-developed standards that are already being implemented, and consumers do not need the government to function as remote volume controls for them. Simply put, the private sector already has acted on this noisy nuisance.

If you're not convinced that having a reliable and fully functioning thumb is better for both you and the Nation than having a fully functioning bureaucracy to adjust your TV's sound, there's also this: Many entities are responsible for producing and distributing the content that we all see and hear. Broadcast affiliates, networks, and cable, satellite, and phone companies then transmit the content. Each element of the programming may be recorded and provided to the distributors at different volume levels. Moreover, shows and movies have a broad, dynamic sound range to cover everything from explosions in a car chase to lawyers whispering to juries. Commercials, meanwhile, tend to have a narrow sound range, and they can blare and annoy when they suddenly follow a movie scene that was putting you to sleep.

The technical challenges presented by these facts are significant, but with the transition to digital television, industry has responded. On November 5, the Advanced Television Systems Committee, ATSC, announced the approval of the ``ATSC Recommended Practice: Techniques for Establishing and Maintaining Audio Loudness for Digital Television.'' These standards provide guidance to the industry, and focus on audio measurement, production and postproduction monitoring techniques, and methods to control loudness for content delivery.

I want to commend my friend, Ms. Eshoo, for working with all the relevant parties and for amending her bill to acknowledge the industry's work. In my opinion, however, there is no reason for Congress to get between me and my remote control. On those grounds, I have to give this measure a thumbs down.

Madam Speaker, I submit the executive summary document concerning the suppressed comments on the EPA endangerment finding for inclusion in the Record. The entire document, `Comments on Draft Technical Support Document for Endangerment Analysis for Greenhouse Gas Emissions under the Clean Air Act,' will be available on the Energy and Commerce Committee website.

Comments on Draft Technical Support Document for Endangerment Analysis

for Greenhouse Gas Emissions Under the Clean Air Act

(By Alan Carlin, NCEE/OPEI)

Based on TSD Draft of March 9, 2009

March 16, 2009

We have become increasingly concerned that EPA has itself

paid too little attention to the science of global warming.

EPA and others have tended to accept the findings reached by

outside groups, particularly the IPCC and the CCSP, as being

correct without a careful and critical examination of their

conclusions and documentation. If they should be found to be

incorrect at a later date, however, and EPA is found not to

have made a really careful independent review of them before

reaching its decisions on endangerment, it appears likely

that it is EPA rather than these other groups that may be

blamed for any errors. Restricting the source of inputs into

the process to these two sources may make EPA's current task

easier but it may come with enormous costs later if they

should result in policies that may not be scientifically

supportable.

We do not maintain that we or anyone else have all the

answers needed to take action now. Some of the conclusions

reached in these comments may well be shown to be incorrect

by future research. Our conclusions do represent the best

science in the sense of most closely corresponding to

available observations that we currently know of, however,

and are sufficiently at variance with those of the IPCC,

CCSP, and the Draft TSD that we believe they support our

increasing concern that EPA has not critically reviewed the

findings by these other groups.

As discussed in these comments, we believe our concerns and

reservations are sufficiently important to warrant a serious

review of the science by EPA before any attempt is made to

reach conclusions on the subject of endangerment from GHGs.

We believe that this review should start immediately and be a

continuing effort as long as there is a serious possibility

that EPA may be called upon to implement regulations designed

to reduce global warming. The science has and undoubtedly

will continue to change and EPA must have the capability to

keep abreast of these changes if it is to successfully

discharge its responsibilities. The Draft TSD suggests to us

that we do not yet have that capability or that we have not

used what we have.

We would be happy to work with and assist anyone who might

want to undertake such a serious review of the science and

hope that these comments will at least illustrate the scope

of what we believe is needed.

We hope that the reader will excuse the many unintentional

errors that are undoubtedly in these comments. Our only

excuse is that we had less than four days to draft these very

lengthy and complex comments. It has not been possible to

fully adhere to our usual very high standards of accuracy as

a result. If there should be questions, we will be happy to

try to correct any errors that anyone may find, however.

It is of great importance that the Agency recognize the

difference between an effort that has consumed tens of

billions of dollars by the IPCC, the CCSP, and some

additional European, particularly British, funding over a

period of at least 15 years with what two EPA staff members

have been able to pull together in less than a week.

Obviously the number of peer reviewed papers that exist and

the polish of the summary reports cannot be compared. What is

actually noteworthy about this effort is not the relative

apparent scientific shine of the two sides but rather the

relative ease with which major holes have been found in the

GHG/CO2/AGW argument. In many cases the most important

arguments are based not on multi-million dollar research

efforts but by simple observation of available data which has

surprisingly received so little scrutiny. The best example of

this is the MSU satellite data on global temperatures. Simple

scrutiny of this data yields what to us are stunning

observations. Yet this has received surprisingly little study

or at least publicity. In the end it must be emphasized that

the issue is not which side has spent the most money or

published the most peer-reviewed papers, or been supported by

more scientific organizations. The issue is rather whether

the GHG/CO2/AGW hypothesis meets the ultimate scientific

test--conformance with real world data. What these comments

show is that it is this ultimate test that the hypothesis

fails; this is why EPA needs to carefully reexamine the

science behind global warming before proposing an

endangerment finding. This will take more than four days but

is the most important thing we can do right now and in the

coming weeks and months and possibly even years.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that during consideration of H.R. 4173 pursuant to H. Res. 956, the ranking member of the Committee on Financial Services be permitted to control 10 minutes of the time allocated to the Chair of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. Chairman, I would yield myself 4 minutes.

(Mr. BARTON of Texas asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

First, let me say I rise in strong opposition to this bill. I did support marking it up at the Energy and Commerce Committee to maintain jurisdiction over this agency and other agencies in our committee's jurisdictions, and I did work with

Chairman Waxman to make some perfecting changes to the bill that is before us. But having said that, I think that it is a bad bill, it's an unnecessary bill, and it's a bill that will have unintended consequences of a negative fashion if enacted in its current form.

I'm glad that some of the Federal Trade Commission's jurisdiction that was originally stripped from the bill and given to the new agency has been retained and put back with the FTC. I also think, though, that a new agency cobbled together by Congress from existing regulatory structure will not eliminate one of the world's oldest sins. Hucksters and scam artists will not throw up their hands and turn honest because there is a new Federal regulator on the block. They will simply find new ways to cheat the government as it tries to get on its wobbly new feet. Bureaucracies, particularly new ones, don't move at the speed of businesses, especially shady, illegal businesses, and they certainly don't move at the speed of fraudsters.

I want to commend Chairman Frank for his hard work on a tough issue. Having said that, the outcome of his hard work is an enormous bill and an enormous bureaucracy that, in my opinion, just won't do the job. Having said that, the Obama administration apparently wants this new behemoth, so we're going to get it--at least we're going to attempt to get it through the House on the floor this evening or tomorrow, whenever the vote may occur.

I wish that a superregulator could find and repair the underlying problems with the housing and mortgage markets, but I don't think it can. Empowering a new agency with nearly limitless power to deem almost any product or service of financial activity is questionable at best and tyrannical at worse. This legislation even fails to create a national standard for the superregulator to enforce. Instead, it adds another layer of Federal regulation on top of existing State laws.

Finally, the legislation gives broad, new authority to the FTC that really has nothing to do with the proposed agency and covers everything beyond consumer financial products.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the bill, and I would hope that we would defeat it.

With that, I want to yield the balance of my time that I control to the distinguished ranking member of the Financial Services Committee, Congressman Bachus of Alabama.

I reserve the balance of my time.

May I inquire how much time I still control, Mr. Chairman?

I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Royce).