Floor Statements

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of House Resolution 1134, acknowledging the month of May as National Mental Health Month. Mental Health Month has been recognized by Congress for over 50 years and has continued to raise awareness in our communities and to lower the stigma associated with mental disorders.

I would like to express my gratitude to the national and community organizations working to promote public awareness of mental health, providing the proper information for families affected by mental illness. Your work is critical to increasing the quality of life for those with mental illnesses.

I would also like to thank the author of the resolution, Congresswoman Grace Napolitano of California, for her leadership in helping Americans' well-being and addressing mental disorders.

I would encourage all of my colleagues to vote in favor of this resolution.

With that, I would ask if Congressman Mike Castle of the great State of Delaware could be the minority floor manager for the balance of this bill.

I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to join my good friend, Chairman John Dingell of the Energy and Commerce Committee, in support of H.R. 5613, the Protecting the Medicaid Safety Net Act of 2008.

Given the fact that Secretary Leavitt of Health and Human Services indicated that he would recommend to the President of the United States that he veto the bill before us in its current form, I do wish we could have brought the bill to the floor under a rule with several potential amendments and a motion to recommit so that we can have a little bit fuller debate rather than putting it on the suspension calendar. Having said that, I am very glad that it is coming to the floor as a stand- alone bill, and that Chairman Dingell and Chairman Pallone of the subcommittee have followed regular order in passing this legislation.

I want to thank Chairman Dingell and Chairman Pallone for holding a

legislative hearing as well as a subcommittee markup and a full committee markup on the bill that's now before us. I also want to thank them for having an open process, where staff on both sides of the aisle could work together, amendments could be shared, and some of those amendments could be agreed upon and incorporated into the bill that's before us today. I would not have been able to support H.R. 5613 as originally introduced, but I can support the bill that's before us this afternoon. I'm proud that, on occasion, we do put good public policy ahead of partisan politics, and the bill before us, again, is an example of what I believe to be better public policy.

I do hope that we take this opportunity to take the issue before us, if this bill becomes law, and actually work on it for the year that the moratorium is in place. The bill before us would place a year-long moratorium on seven Medicaid rules. It does not mean that the suspended rules themselves are all bad and don't address a problem that needs to be addressed. It does mean that many of the interest groups and many of the States had significant problems with those rules, and so it was felt prudent to have a moratorium where we could hopefully, in the interim, determine how to fine tune and maybe change some of those rules.

We do need to save money in Medicaid. We do need to do something on this system of intergovernmental transfers. For those of you who don't understand what an intergovernmental transfer is, as used in Medicaid, a State will give money to the Federal Government that is then matched by the Federal Government and sent back to the State. The State will give some of that money to, in this case a hospital system, but then keep some of the money that it initially gave. So it's kind of a shell game where you put up some money to get it matched, and once you get the matched back, the money you put up you use for another purpose, not for a health purpose, but maybe for a different purpose, like building a highway or something like that. One of the suspended rules would have addressed this intergovernmental transfer, and I hope that in the next year, on a bipartisan basis, we can address the intergovernmental transfer issue itself.

I would be happy to yield.

I thank the distinguished chairman.

We simply cannot pretend on a day that we're suspending these rules that there are not fundamental financial difficulties facing Medicaid. So while we agree to suspend the rules for the next year, I hope we can also agree, as the chairman just indicated that he did, that we're going to continue to work on the problems these rules were designed to address so that over time we can reach agreement on how to save money under Medicaid.

I do believe the bill before us is a good bill. It does have a pay- for. It is, on a net basis, a slight revenue increase to the Federal Treasury, so it is paid for. And if we spend the next year working together, if we implement some of the things in this bill, the bill gives $25 million a year to combat waste, fraud and abuse in Medicaid, if we use that money wisely, we will uncover some savings. And if we look at some of these suspended rules, we can perhaps work together to fine tune them so that a year from now, at the beginning of the next administration, we don't have to extend the moratorium.

In short, Mr. Speaker, while this is not a perfect bill, it's a good bill. Don't let the pursuit of perfection prevent the accomplishment of what is something that is good and possible.

I would urge a ``yes'' vote on H.R. 5613, especially on my side of the aisle, among the Republicans in the House of Representatives.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I simply want to reiterate that as the ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Committee, I strongly support this piece of legislation. It did receive the votes of every Republican on the committee. It passed 46-0. I had wished it would not have been a suspension calendar bill, but I am happy it is a stand- alone bill, and I would encourage my colleagues to vote for this bill.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise today to pay tribute to Charles Edwin ``Cotton'' Eaton. On December 26, 2007, Cotton Eaton's family, the community of Athens, Texas and this country lost another hero in America's greatest generation. Born and raised in Navarro County in Texas, Cotton Eaton went on to serve his country proudly in the United States Army during World War II in the South Pacific. In peacetime, Cotton Eaton put his entrepreneurial spirit to work for this country as he owned and operated the Eaton Motor Company in Athens, Texas before retiring in 1988. Cotton Eaton's wit and spirited nature, anchored by a commitment to his family and community, earned him the respect of so many. Despite his own extraordinary contributions, Cotton Eaton always celebrated the gratitude of God's goodness in life.

Madam Speaker, I would like to recognize this true American hero and offer my condolences to Cotton Eaton's wife of 67 years, Dorothy, their two children, Janice and John, and their grandchildren and great-grand children.

Madam Speaker, I urge my colleagues to join me in paying tribute to Charles Edwin ``Cotton'' Eaton.

I want to thank Congressman Deal for his excellent leadership of this issue and floor time and his demeanor and ability to coordinate the effort. I really appreciate that.

Mr. Speaker, I, along with every Member of this body, am very concerned about the almost invisible illness which we call mental illness. There is absolutely no question that it is real. There is no question that we need to do more to alleviate it and treat it and, if possible, make it possible for those that have it to be cured of it. Unfortunately, the bill before us today doesn't do that.

We are in the process of putting together a bill that, if it passes in its current form, does nothing more than bureaucratize, in my opinion, the treatment of mental illness. It goes so far as to put the entire catalog of various diagnoses into Federal statute. I don't think that makes a lot of sense. This Diagnostic and Statistical Manual has numerous categories that are very real abuses, very real problems, but I think it is a debatable proposition whether they constitute mental illness.

For example, code V71.01 of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual covers professional thieves, racketeers, and dealers in illegal substances. Now in my book, those are thugs and criminals; they are not people suffering from a mental illness. And I don't want, if this bill were to become law and the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual be put into Federal statute, for a criminal defense attorney to stand up in court and cite this law as a reason that their client should be treated for mental illness and not be subject to criminal penalties and hopefully, if proven guilty, put behind bars.

There is a better bill. It is a bill that has come out of the other body. It is a bill that was put together in the other body with bipartisan support. In my opinion, it is a better bill than the bill before us. I would hope that at the appropriate time we might work with the other body and adopt more of that language than the language before us.

Finally, Mr. Speaker, I am concerned that this bill came before us under a closed rule. We did have an open debate in the committee and I want to commend Chairman Dingell for that. But coming to the floor, we were offered no substitute. We were offered no amendments.

I am also concerned about the offset. The offset is an attack on physician-owned hospitals. And it is kind of odd that the same provision that the CBO now scores as saving hundreds of millions of dollars over 5 years and billions over 10 years, 3 years ago had no savings at all when we looked at a similar provision in the Budget Reconciliation Act.

So I would oppose this on procedural reasons and also policy reasons and hope we would defeat it and then work with the other body on some version of the bill that has already come out of the other body.

Mr. Speaker, in 1965 the hot car on the American market was a Ford Mustang, which cost less than $2,000. The President of the United States was Lyndon Johnson. The entire Federal budget was less than $100 billion. The war that was on the front pages was the war in south Vietnam. The Super Bowl didn't exist. Cell phones didn't exist. If you wanted to use a computer, you typed out your program on data index cards and submitted them in a batch to a mainframe computer. I believe the dominant mainframe was an IBM 360. Gasoline cost approximately 25 cents a gallon, and a little-noticed program was put into effect to help our senior citizens with their health care costs called Medicare.

Forty-three years later, that Medicare program is going to expend over $400 billion to provide health care for over 45 million senior citizens in every State and territory of the United States. If something is not changed between now and the year 2018, in the year 2018, or 2019, the Medicare Trust Fund is going to be bankrupt.

If we look back in 1965 at how health care was provided and look at how it's provided in 2008, you would see numerous differences. We now focus, in Medicare, through the Medicare Advantage programs, which 20 percent of our seniors have chosen, on preventive care. A lot of Medicare spending today is through drug therapy, as opposed to surgery, things of this sort.

But the one thing that's constant has been the continuing escalation in cost. Medicare has averaged double digit increases in cost the last 10 years, and it's expected, by the year 2018, to be over $800 billion.

Medicare spending this year of over $400 billion is going to exceed by a factor of 4 the entire Federal budget back in 1965, the year that was created.

So because of the increase in the population, the increase in the complexity, the diversity of health care therapies, several years ago the Congress put into place what's called the Medicare trigger. The Medicare trigger says that in any year that Medicare spending or Medicare revenues come from 45 percent or more of the general revenue, i.e., the premiums that Medicare beneficiaries and the cost share that companies and Medicare payors pay into the system, when more than 45 percent of the funds going into Medicare come from the general U.S. Treasury, the Medicare trustees have to issue to the Congress a report. And if this happens 2 years in a row, the President of the United States has to submit a proposal to the Congress on how to bring spending back below the 45 percent trigger. That happened for the first time last year, in fiscal year 2006, and it's happened again this year, in the fiscal year that just ended, fiscal year 2007.

So several weeks ago the President and the Secretary of Health and Human Services presented to this Congress a report that did two things: Number 1, it did announce that the spending had exceeded 45 percent of the revenues of the general treasury, and Number 2, it put forward an outline of the proposal on how to bring that spending back below the 45 percent trigger.

The Congress does not have to act on the President's proposal. The Congress can initiate one of its own. In fact, if 70 Members of this House decide that they want a different proposal than the President of the United States, if 70 Members will sign a letter, I believe, to the Speaker of the House and also to the chairman of the Budget Committee, those 70 Members will present their proposal to the Budget Committee. If the Budget Committee holds hearings and certifies that the proposal that's been submitted by the 70 Members does, in fact, meet the requirements of the law, that proposal then is ordered reported to the House of Representatives for an up-or-down vote.

So sometime in the next several months, you are going to hopefully see a number of proposals submitted to the Budget Committee on how to deal with the pending crisis in Medicare. And I would encourage all Members of this body, since we all have Medicare recipients in our congressional districts, to be a part of some group that tries to address this problem.

Now, the President's proposal, again, it is not a definitive legislative language developed proposal. It's more of an outline of policy objectives, but the policy objectives are pretty straight forward: number one, Medicare beneficiaries that have higher incomes would pay slightly more in their premiums so you would begin to have a graduated means-tested premium increase based on your ability to pay the Medicare premium; number two would be a Medicare liability reform proposal that has been talked about for years. That, by itself, would probably save $180 billion over 5 years or so. There would be a requirement for more pricing transparency and more openness, so that Medicare beneficiaries could see what prices they're paying or are being paid on their behalf. And also there are some proposals, I believe, on quality indexing, quality of reporting so that, again, before the beneficiary decides where to have a particular procedure done or which doctor to use, he or she might have some data on the quality of the health care that's provided by various Medicare providers.

All in all, the President's proposal is very modest, but it's certainly one that needs to be seriously considered; and, again, the need for doing something on Medicare is something that we need to

begin to address as a Congress. The Medicare trustees have reported that if current policies are not changed within the next 11 years, the Medicare trust fund will go bankrupt. What that means is if you are 54 years old or younger, when you retire there will be no money in the Medicare trust fund to pay your Medicare benefits which you are, by law, entitled to at age 65.

So this is a problem that we can't put off for 20 years or 50 years. In my opinion, we can't put it off for any years. Again, we need to begin to address it immediately, we need to address it in this Congress, and we need to hopefully address it in a bipartisan fashion.

I now yield to the distinguished member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the ranking member of the Veterans' Affairs Committee, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Buyer).

Mr. Speaker, I want to recapitulate why we are here this evening taking this Special Order. As I pointed out earlier, Medicare is a mandatory program for senior citizens over age 65. It was established in 1965, which is 43 years ago. I don't exactly remember in the first year how many citizens were covered and how much money was expended, but my recollection is that several million senior citizens were covered and expenses were in the order of a magnitude of 6 or $700 million. In the last year that we have numbers for, 45 million Americans were covered and the costs were over 400 billion.

Now, it is a good thing that we have 45 million senior citizens in this country. Those are our grandparents and great grandparents and great aunts and uncles. They are certainly the generation that has been pointed out that fought the great wars of World War II and Korea and Vietnam. They have ushered in an amazing American economy unsurpassed in the history of the world in terms of its ability to generate wealth and economic prosperity. And they are well deserving of the benefits that we are paying out for Medicare.

So the problem is not that our senior citizens don't deserve the best health care in the world, and it is not that we are living healthier and longer. The problem is, quite simply, how do we pay for it. Average expenditures for Medicare are on the order of magnitude of about $7,000 per person per year. And to put that in perspective, that is more than most families pay per person for their food or for their housing.

If nothing is done on the current Medicare program in terms of its policies and the way it's structured in 11 years, in 2019, the Medicare trust fund is going to be bankrupt. As I pointed out earlier, if you are 54 years young or younger, when you retire, there will be no Medicare. Now I'm 58. So if I were to retire at age 65, in 7 years I would have 3 years of Medicare benefits before the program went bankrupt. My wife, Terry, who's younger than me, when she retires, she would have no benefits. None of my children would have benefits. None of my grandchildren would have benefits.

So this is not a program that we can just let go on automatic pilot. We need to begin to fundamentally and in a focused way look at the Medicare program as it exists today, not cut people off the program, not change it so that there are fewer benefits. We need to look at Medicare and try to bring our technology to bear, bring our management processes to bear, all of the innovations that have happened in the last 40 years.

As I pointed out earlier, if we were still making the 1964 Mustang, that was a great car in 1964, 1965. But it's hardly the car that people want to buy today. We didn't have cell phones in 1965. Today, everybody in America has a cell phone. In fact, there are more cell phones than there are hard line phones. If you look at computers, the computer in 1965 was a mainframe computer that you had to go to a central location to use. I would guess that almost every American citizen has some access to a personal computer today.

So a lot has changed in many fields since 1965. But in Medicare, we have the same basic program funded the same basic way.

So we need to look at ways to change that program and to bring it into the 21st century. I think some of those ideas are going to be in the form of preventive medicine, like we have in those seniors, about 20 percent of those 9 million that have chosen a Medicare Advantage plan. There may be some ways in terms of sharing costs; as the President has suggested, Medicare beneficiaries that are more well-to- do could pay a higher share of their premium.

We have the whole issue of health information technology, or health IT. It's suspected and predicted that if we would bring health information technology to bear on Medicare, you could save tens of billions, perhaps more, each year just by using that technology that's currently in the private sector.

So, there are a number of great ideas, but because of this Medicare trigger, this year, a certain percent of Members, I believe it is 70 Members, but a

number on that order of magnitude, if they have a plan to restructure Medicare, to reform it, to bring the spending in total below 45 percent of general revenue, they can submit their plan to the chairman of the Budget Committee. The chairman of the Budget Committee will hold hearings to certify that the plan does, in fact, meet the Medicare trigger recommendations. And if it does, my understanding of the law is that those plans have to be brought to the floor; they have to be voted on by the House of Representatives. Now, I'm not clear exactly the procedure for the rules for bringing these proposals to the floor, whether every proposal is given a vote on the floor or whether there are only certain proposals that are certified by the Rules Committee, but my understanding is that all proposals that meet the budgetary cutoff do get an up or down vote on the House floor.

So, if you're a member of the majority, of the Democrat Party, and you've got an idea and you can get 70 Members to support it, your plan can be voted on. If a bipartisan group of Members bring a proposal, that plan can be voted on. If the Republican leadership, whom I'm doing this Special Order for, has a plan, it can be voted on. If the President can get 70 Members to sign under his plan, it can be voted on. I personally don't see any problem with having different plans on the floor. The bottom line is to vote on some plan that begins to restructure and reform Medicare. Again, not trying to cut people off the program, not trying to tell our senior citizens we're going to do away with Medicare; what we should be telling our senior citizens is that we want Medicare to be there not just for another 11 years, but we want it to be there for another 50 years, another 60 years, not for people that are just now over 60 and over 70, but for our children and our grandchildren.

This is a program that, again, in 1965, my recollection is it cost less than $1 billion a year. This past year it cost over $400 billion. And by 2018, it's going to cost over $800 billion. And by 2036, it's going to cost more than the entire Federal budget today, which is over $2 trillion.

So this is not something that we can just put on the back shelf and not do anything about. It is something that we need to take action on. And again, because of the Medicare trigger, we have the ability, under expedited rules, to put these proposals to the Budget Committee, the Budget Committee certifies its proposal will meet the cost savings requirement, those plans will come to the floor and be voted on sometime this year before we go home in October for the elections in November.

So, Mr. Speaker, I want to bring to the attention of the House the Medicare trigger language and that it does require the President to submit a proposal. He has done so. It does require the Budget Committee to meet on that proposal and any other proposals that 70 Members of the body can put before the Budget Committee. And it does require that the House vote on the bill, or the bills, later this year.

We need to address it. The Medicare trustees have pointed out that for 2 years in a row the spending has exceeded 45 percent of the general revenues going into the program, and so it is time for us to begin to address it.

Mr. Speaker, I see no other Members present. So with that, I would humbly suggest that everybody begin to think about what to do to protect and reform Medicare.

Madam Speaker, I would ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Camp) have 15 minutes of the time I control to control as he sees fit.

Madam Speaker, I recognize myself for such time as I may consume.

Well, here we go again. Depending on how you count it, this is somewhere between the ninth and the 13th time that we have been on the floor of the House in this session of Congress debating the SCHIP program. That seems a little ironic since it's a program that both sides of the aisle support, and I would support enthusiastically.

I listened intently to what my good friend from Michigan, the dean of the House, Mr. Dingell just said about the program, and I feel compelled to point out a few things that he failed to mention. Number 1, every American in this country, if they're below 100 percent of poverty, receives health care if they wish it through a program called Medicaid. If you are above 100 percent of poverty and are a child, right now a child is defined as an individual between the ages of birth and 19 years old, between 100 and 200 percent of poverty, you can receive health care through the SCHIP program, which is a State-Federal partnership.

The numbers are somewhat in dispute, but we believe that under the current program, in the neighborhood, I believe, of 6 million children and 600 to 700,000 adults are receiving health care through SCHIP. If you're above 200 percent of poverty, hopefully you have insurance through your own health insurance program or through a program provided by your employer.

There are some States that cover children up to 250 percent of poverty, and there are some States that cover them up to 300 percent of poverty. And there are a few States that have petitioned to cover them up to 350 percent of poverty.

So on the Republican side of the aisle, here are the principles that we adhere to in this debate. If you're a child between the ages, up to the age of 19 and your family income is over 100 percent of poverty or less than 200 percent of poverty, we believe you should have health care through SCHIP and we want to fund it, and we want to work with the States to get as many children in that category covered.

If you're an adult, we don't believe you should be covered under SCHIP, so we think that the 6 to 700,000 adults should be transitioned off of SCHIP and put back on Medicaid.

If you're above 200 percent of poverty, we want to work with the States. We want to work with the private sector to come up with innovative plans to cover those children that perhaps aren't covered and their family income is above 200 percent of poverty.

If you're not a citizen of the United States, we don't believe you should receive health care coverage under SCHIP.

So that's what the debate is about. The Democrats want to expand the coverage. There are some of them that want to use it as a surrogate for universal health care for every American in this country. I don't say that all of my friends on the Democratic side do, but some do.

So the Republicans' position is, continue the existing program, perhaps increase coverage somewhat above 200 percent of poverty; cover every child in America between 100 and 200 percent; don't cover illegal aliens; and transition adults off of SCHIP.

The law of the land, the Barton-Deal bill that we passed in December, extends the basic program that I just outlined, I believe, through March of 2009.

So, once again, we're going to have a vote on the President's veto. I predict we're going to sustain that veto. And then I'm still hopeful that Mr. Dingell and Mr. Rangel and Mr. Stark and Mr. Pallone, who are the leaders on this issue in the House, will convene their various committees, and we'll do legislative hearings and then put together a bipartisan bill and mark it up in committee and then bring it to the floor, and we can have a permanent authorization of SCHIP sometime in this Congress.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Denton, Texas (Mr. Burgess), a member of the committee.

Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to the amount of time that remains on all sides, please.

Madam Speaker, I want to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Congresswoman Blackburn of Nashville, Tennessee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Health Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Congressman Deal of Georgia.

Madam Speaker, I want to yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Florida, Congresswoman Ginny Brown-Waite.

Madam Speaker, I have no other speakers other than myself, so I am going to reserve the time until we are prepared to close.

Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve. I am the closing speaker.

Madam Speaker, I continue to be the last speaker, and will reserve until we are prepared to close.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I want to thank you for the very dignified way in which you have overseen this debate, not just today but in all the previous SCHIP debates. You are truly a credit to the institution, and I appreciate your courtesy.

Madam Speaker, constitutionally, when the President vetoes a piece of legislation, to override that veto either the House or the Senate has to muster more than two-thirds of its Members that are present and voting.

Now, I am not sure that it is a requirement that you bring a veto vote up or whether it is just a courtesy, but in any event, the majority postponed the veto override vote from back before Christmas until today. If one wants to be cynical, you could say that veto postponement was done for political reasons, since the President is giving the State of the Union next week. In any event, here we are again, and I will predict, and the majority leader when he spoke acknowledged this, that the votes won't be there to override the President's veto.

So we will continue to operate under the extension, the Barton-Deal bill that two-thirds of the Republican Conference are cosponsors of, that this House and the Senate passed right back before Christmas, and that the President signed. That bill, as Mr. Camp has pointed out, increases funding by almost $1 billion, or approximately 20 percent, and extends the program through March of next year. So there is no child currently on SCHIP that is going to lose coverage, regardless of the vote today.

Now, I do want to compliment my good friend Mr. Pallone, if he is on the floor, I don't see him, but have just

been told that, lo and behold, we are going to have a legislative hearing next week on SCHIP. In his subcommittee, the Health Subcommittee, there is going to be for the first time in this Congress a hearing on SCHIP. So that tells me that there is an outside chance, and maybe better than an outside chance, that sometime in the next 2 to 3 months, if Mr. Dingell agrees and Mr. Stark agrees and Mr. Rangel agrees, we may actually do what we should have done 13 months ago, which is begin to craft a bipartisan compromise on how to permanently reauthorize, or at least reauthorize SCHIP for more than 15 months, and perhaps modify the program, and then expand it to cover some children that are currently not covered. So there is always hope.

But while that is yet to materialize, the vote before us today is to sustain the President's veto. I hope we do that, and then we can begin to work next week, hopefully on a bipartisan basis, to craft a compromise that the President will sign, and then we will have a signing ceremony either in the Oval Office or the Rose Garden sometime this year. But, today, vote to sustain the President's veto.

Madam Speaker, here we are again. For the ninth time, we are here on the

floor of the House to vote on some form of consideration of the latest version of the Democratic leadership's SCHIP and Medicaid expansion bill. And if you count the votes on the Rules Committee resolutions for consideration of these bills, we will be debating this issue for the 13th time this morning.

And while the Democratic leadership has tried a dozen times to stuff their ideology down our throats on the floor of the House, the same Democratic leadership still hasn't held one single legislative hearing or completed one single legislative markup in the Energy and Commerce Committee, the committee with jurisdiction over the SCHIP program.

In December, the Democrats held their second debate on a motion to postpone consideration of the President's veto. Since that vote, Congress and the President have passed legislation that fully funds the SCHIP program through March of 2009.

It was my hope that once we passed the SCHIP extension legislation that we could come together and begin a true legislative process that could yield results. We've heard all this talk lately from the Democratic leaders about bipartisanship, but all we actually get is empty words and authoritarian process.

Then why are we here again today, Madam Speaker? Well, the only reason I can think of for this vote is the fact that the President is going to be delivering the State of the Union Address next Monday, and the Democrats have decided that they need more political theater in order to influence the press coverage of the President's address.

I thought that the reason we passed the extension legislation was to give us another 15 months to have a thoughtful bipartisan discussion on how to best craft a long-term reauthorization of the SCHIP program. I thought we were going to have legislative hearings where we could bring in policy experts to help us craft the best possible bill for the needy, low-income children in this country.

I listened to the debate on the floor. If we could write a bill based on what Members think the bill does, we may not be far off from compromise. One member said during the previous debate that this bill does not provide benefits for those above 200 percent of poverty, which is $42,000 a year. If that is what Members support, then a compromise can be had. I have heard Members say that this bill takes adults off this Children's health insurance program. If that is what Member's believe the bill should do, then there is room for compromise.

I've heard Members say that they do not want people in the country illegally getting benefits. If there is agreement on that, there is room for compromise. I have also heard emphatic pleas that this bill is needed to ensure that poor children receive health care. I agree with that sentiment also, and we have proposals to ensure that States cover poor children first.

Unfortunately, the legislation does not match the rhetoric. It is my sincere hope that Democrats will eventually stop playing politics with the health of low-income children and begin to actually work in a bipartisan manner to help them. I hope that time comes soon, and when it does, I stand ready to work with the Democrats in a bipartisan manner. As it stands now, I urge all Members to reject this cynical ploy and vote to sustain a veto that is both wise and brave, and which will force Democrats to value the health of poor children instead of using them as props.

Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Madam Speaker, I hadn't intended to give a 1- minute today, but I just got off the telephone with one of my dear friends, the Senator from the great State of Mississippi, the Honorable Trent Lott.

Today is his last day in the United States Senate. After a distinguished career in both the House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate, he is resigning effective, I assume, today or tomorrow, whenever the other body goes out.

I have known Trent Lott for the 23 years that I have been in the House of Representatives. When I first got elected, he was the minority whip here in the House. He is one of the wisest, in terms of political knowledge, men that I have ever been around in my political career. He is a great guy personally. He has a great family. He has served not only his State, but his country, with exemplary distinction for the many-odd years that he has been in the House and the Senate.

We are going to miss the Honorable Trent Lott of the Magnolia State of Mississippi, and I want to wish him and his family the very best this holiday season and in the years ahead.

God bless Trent Lott and his family.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2\1/2\ minutes.

Madam Speaker, it is difficult to speak on this subject because we have debated it so many times in the last 1\1/2\ months. Suffice it to say that all is well that ends well, and today we have a bill before us that is going to temporarily fix the physician reimbursement issue. It is going to extend the SCHIP program through March of 2009. It is going to extend the special diabetes program for another year and a number of other things.

These are all good things and people on both sides of the aisle support them. It shouldn't have taken all year to do these things, but it has.

I want to speak very briefly about the SCHIP program. The language in the bill before us is essentially the Barton-Deal language, which Congressman Deal of Georgia, the ranking member of the Health Subcommittee, and myself introduced 7 or 8 months ago to extend the existing SCHIP program for 18 months, to make sure that all children currently receiving coverage continue to receive coverage, to have a slight increase in funding so that some new enrollments could occur. It is a commonsense approach to an issue while we debate with our friends on the majority side the extent to which we want to expand or change the program.

We have had two Presidential vetoes. We have had enough speeches on the House floor and the other body to probably populate a national forest in terms of the amount of paper that has been used to cover those speeches. And yet we are here today doing what we could have done 11 months ago.

I am very pleased that the SCHIP program is going to be extended. I am very pleased that no State is going to lose funding. I am very pleased that we are going to continue to cover the children that have been covered. And I look forward in the next year to the same offer that Congressman Deal and Mr. McCrery and Mr. Camp and I have made to our friends on the majority, let's have some hearings.

We now have 15 months. We could hold regular hearings. We could introduce draft bills. We could circulate those bills. We could have a bipartisan dialogue. We could have an actual open, transparent committee markup in both the Ways and Means Committee and the Energy and Commerce Committee. It is still possible in this Congress to have the meetings of the mind on SCHIP in terms of changes to the program, and I hope, Madam Speaker, that that occurs in the next 12 months.

Madam Speaker, may I inquire how much time I have remaining.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to yield 10 minutes of that time to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. McCrery), the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, for him to control.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Health Subcommittee, Mr. Deal of Georgia, who has worked tirelessly on these issues this year.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds just to point out that the subregulatory deadline that Mr. Emanuel referred to requires States to show a good-faith effort to cover 95 percent of those children below 200 percent of poverty before they cover children above 250 percent of poverty.

I yield 2 minutes to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Blackburn), a member of the committee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1\1/4\ minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Aderholt) who is one of the negotiators of an attempt at a compromise.

Madam Speaker, I am the only speaker remaining for my portion of the time, so I am prepared to close.

Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 30 of my seconds to the gentleman from Missouri (Mr. Blunt).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the remainder of my time.

I want to compliment Congresswoman Lowey of New York for working to include the 60 percent fix for the rehabilitation hospitals. I wasn't aware that that was in the bill. I'm very pleased that that is.

I would like to, I guess, compliment my friend from California, Chairman Stark, for at least agreeing that this bill is worthy of coming to the floor.

I would like to point out that the whole purpose of SCHIP is to cover low- and moderate-income kids. That was the original intent. There are many of us on this side of the aisle that still think that should be the intent. If you want to go to some of the larger numbers of coverage of children that are currently not covered, you have to go above 250 and, in some cases, above 300 percent of poverty.

You also are covering right now six to 700,000 adults. There are those like myself that don't think adults need to be covered by SCHIP because those same adults can be covered by Medicaid, which is the coverage for low-income Americans, regardless of how old they are.

I would like to point out the obvious. When you're in the minority, the only way you can get anything passed is to work with the majority. That's self-evident. When you're in the majority

you can pass things in the House just by yourself, but if you want them to become law, you normally have to work with the minority. And I hope this debate on SCHIP has shown people on both sides of the aisle that we should be trying to legislate and work together instead of scoring political points for one particular side.

With that, Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.

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

Madam Speaker, I want to commend Chairman Rush and Chairman Dingell for moving this legislation, commend Ms. Schakowsky and Congressman King for their bipartisan endorsement of it.

We have had some problems with the process on this bill. We didn't have a hearing on it. We didn't have a subcommittee markup, but we did have the discussions. Chairman Dingell did postpone consideration of the bill in full committee so we could have those discussions, and we certainly support the intent of the bill, and so we certainly are willing to endorse it and hope that it gets a unanimous vote.

Madam Speaker, with that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the Republican cosponsor of the bill, a former chairman of the Homeland Security Committee, the gentleman from New York (Mr. King).

Madam Speaker, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Gingrey).

Madam Speaker, I have no more speakers. I urge the adoption of the bill, and I yield back the balance of our time, also.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

Madam Speaker, I want to start off by congratulating Chairman John Dingell. I have with me today's Congress Daily, one of the news periodicals that tracks what we do. And on page 7 the headline is ``House Panel Easily Passes Consumer Safety Legislation.'' It goes on to say that Dingell said he plans to approach the Speaker and ask her to put the bill on the Suspension Calendar because it passed committee 51-0, and in the next paragraph it says that a leadership aide said it is unlikely that the bill could come to the floor before Congress adjourns for the year.

Well, I just want to congratulate the chairman for going to Speaker Pelosi and getting her to agree to put this bill on the floor before we go home because this bill shows how the Congress should work. It didn't pass 51-0 because of serendipity. It passed 51-0 yesterday in the Energy and Commerce Committee because staffs on both sides of the aisle of both the full committee and the subcommittee met for countless hours to negotiate the many compromises necessary to put the bill together. I want to especially compliment Consuela Washington, the majority counsel, Chairman Dingell's counsel, who has worked so hard on this bill. If President Washington were still alive today, he would be very proud of her for the work that she's done because she has not only had to work with the minority staffers and members, she has also had to diligently work with the majority staffers and members as sometimes each side was pulling her in different directions. It's good to know that she's all in one piece and doing well.

This bill will strengthen the Consumer Product Safety Commission. This bill will create a state-of-the-art testing laboratory to test the products and the toys that we sell to the American public. This bill will enhance the recall ability of the Consumer Product Safety Commission. This bill will expand the number of commissioners so that we have a full commission again. This bill increases the fines that the Consumer Product Safety Commission can levy against recalcitrant companies that sell defective products. And this bill has the toughest lead standard in the world for products.

I wish it were my line, but it's not. Chairman Rush's line on the lead standard, in response to an amendment in committee to make it even tougher, said that God himself at Mount Horeb where He gave the Ten Commandments to Moses, that may have been the only holy ground in the world that would have met this standard. I thought that was just priceless in terms of trying to put in context how tough this standard is that the Lord Himself would have difficulty meeting the standard in the bill.

So this is a good work product. It was done the right way. Negotiations with the stakeholders, negotiations with members, negotiations with the staff; an open markup at subcommittee; adequate time between subcommittee and full committee; a manager's amendment that was circulated so all members had a chance to see it; a full committee markup that lasted 2 days; numerous amendments that were offered, some withdrawn, some accepted, some modified. And the result was a 51-0 vote that occurred in full committee yesterday. And then again, thanks to Chairman Dingell's ability to get things done in the House, a Suspension Calendar vote today so that Members on both sides of the aisle have an attempt to put their stamp of approval on this very important piece of legislation.

I'm very proud to have played a small part in this process, and I cannot urge in stronger language that we should pass this and send it to the other body so that they may also reciprocate.

I predicted at the press conference 6 weeks ago or 2 months ago that something very close to this bill will be on the President's desk. We will have a bill signing ceremony in the Oval Office or the Rose Garden on this legislation later in this Congress.

So I'm very pleased to endorse it. I again thank all Members for their hard work, and a special commendation to Cliff Stearns, the former ranking member of the subcommittee, for his hard work.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I want to yield 5 minutes to the former chairman of the subcommittee and then the ranking member of the subcommittee, who is now the ranking member of the Telecommunications Subcommittee, the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns).

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

May I inquire as to the time I have remaining, Madam Speaker?

I ask unanimous consent to yield 6 of my 11 minutes to Mr. Rush for him to control.

And of the 5 minutes I still control, I want to yield two of those minutes to the new ranking member of the Consumer Protection and Trade Subcommittee, Mr. Whitfield.

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to a distinguished member of the full committee, Dr. Murphy of Pennsylvania.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

I continue to reserve my time.

I continue to reserve my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I already complimented the majority on their process. I also want to compliment the majority and the minority on both sides on the policy. This bill has the toughest lead standards in the world for children's products. Let me repeat that. The bill before us has the toughest lead standards in the world for children's products.

It is phased in. The timetable may not be quite as aggressive as some of our consumer advocates would like it to be, but it is a fact that if this bill gets through the Senate, and I hope it will, the President signs it, and I know he will, we will have the toughest lead standards in the world for children's products.

It has a premarket approval process that is a major reform over the current practice, so that no product will be put into the marketplace until it has been adequately and aggressively tested before it goes to market. That is another major change from the current law.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission is a small agency. I believe it has less than 500 employees. But it is a very important agency. And I think it is important for the authorizing committees to do due diligence in their oversight and to also do due diligence in reauthorizing their agencies. I was very proud in the last Congress that for the first time in 14 years we reauthorized the National Institutes of Health and put in several major reforms.

I am glad in this Congress that we are working on a bipartisan basis to reauthorize the Consumer Product Safety Commission. I look forward, once we pass this piece of legislation, to work with the majority to take a look at the Federal Communications Commission. I believe it could use some reforms, too, and I know Chairman Dingell and Subcommittee Chairman Markey have some of those same concerns that I have.

I urge a strong ``yes'' vote on this legislation.

With that, Madam Speaker, I would yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.

Mr. Speaker and Members of the House, it's interesting how different people can see the same set of circumstances and come to totally different conclusions.

In the last Congress, we passed the Energy Policy Act of 2005 on a bipartisan basis. There were open markups in the House and the Senate. There was an open conference committee that was televised in some cases. We had, I believe, a majority of the Democrats vote for that bill on the House floor, a majority of the Democrats in the Senate, and obviously almost all the Republicans in both bodies. It was the most comprehensive energy bill to be signed into law in probably the last 30 or 40 years.

Many of the things in that bill are going to be undone if and when this bill passes and the President signs it, which he is expected to do so. I understand the consequences of elections. I understand there is a new majority. I do not understand how what made sense 2 years ago doesn't make sense today.

Let's take the issue of fuel economy standards. If there is a crown jewel in this bill, it apparently is that we're going to raise CAFE standards significantly for the first time in 30 years. On the surface, that may appear to be a good thing, but let me point out a few things.

There are over 350 models of automobiles and trucks that are currently available for sale to the American public. There are only eight vehicles that get 35 miles to the gallon. They are the Honda Fit, the Honda Civic, the Honda Civic Hybrid, the Toyota Yaris, both manual and automatic, Toyota Corolla, Toyota Camry Hybrid, and the Toyota Prius. That's it.

Now, let's look at the top eight selling vehicles that the American public have bought so far this year. Number one is the Ford F-series pickup. Number two is the Chevrolet Silverado pickup. Number three is the Toyota Camry, not the Camry Hybrid. Number four is the Dodge Ram pickup. Number five is the Honda Accord. Number six is the Toyota Corolla. Number seven is the Honda Civic. Number eight is the Nissan Altima. Only two or three of those get 35 miles to the gallon.

I will stipulate, as smart as our engineers in Detroit are, it is going to be very, very difficult, if not impossible, for the Ford F- series pickups, the Chevy Silverado and the Dodge Ram pickup to get 35 miles to the gallon by the year 2020.

There are vehicles that meet the standard. Some of those make the top list of sales, but three of the top four do not. I will stipulate by setting the standard at 35 miles to the gallon, will we improve fuel economy? Yes, we will. Will we reach the holy grail of 35 miles per gallon on a fleet average by 2020? If I had to guess, I would bet we'll be back on this floor within the next 10 years providing for an extension of that because I think it's going to be technologically very difficult, if not impossible. And I think economically it's not going to be possible at all.

What the bill before us is is a mandatory conservation bill. Now, conservation in and of itself is a good thing. I won't deny that. But conservation without some supply is a bad thing, and that's what this bill is. We're preempting State and local building codes with Federal building standards for so-called ``green buildings.'' We're mandating 35 billion gallons of alternative fuels that right now the technology simply doesn't exist. Hopefully our engineers and scientists can make that happen, but what if they don't?

We are also basically just changing the way that we operate in a market economy for energy in this country to the government knows the best and the government is going to tell the American people what's best for them, whether the American people like it or not. I think that's a mistake, Mr.

Speaker. And for that reason, I would hope we vote against the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Rockwall, Texas, Mr. Ralph Hall.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from California (Mr. Campbell).

I would like to yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Peterson).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentlewoman from Nashville, Tennessee, Congresswoman Blackburn.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 3 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from the great State of Alaska, former chairman of the Transportation Committee and the Natural Resources Committee, Mr. Young.

(Mr. YOUNG of Alaska asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to another distinguished member of the committee, the winning pitcher of the Republican baseball team, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Shimkus).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from the Great State of Enchantment, Mr. Pearce of New Mexico.

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

I yield 3 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Energy and Air Quality Subcommittee, Mr. Upton, of the Wolverine State of Michigan.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to one of the leading experts in the Congress on the theory of peak oil, Mr. Bartlett of Maryland.

(Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

Mr. Speaker, could I inquire as to how much time remains on each side.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from the Sunshine State of Florida (Mr. Stearns).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Inglis).

Mr. Speaker, I only have myself to close, perhaps one other speaker who is in the cloakroom, so I reserve the balance of my time.

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

Mr. Speaker, we don't get elected to come to Congress and be against things. As the chairman of the Energy Committee in the last Congress, I was honored to chair the conference committee which passed the most comprehensive energy bill to become law in the last 20 to 30 years, so it is with a heavy heart that I come to the floor today to oppose this particular energy bill.

I don't oppose it out of spite and I don't oppose it because there is a different majority; I oppose it because of what is in it and what is not in it. Let's talk about what's not in it.

There is nothing in it for coal to liquids. There is nothing in it for the domestic oil and gas industry. There is very little in it for the nuclear industry. So for all of the conventional energy sources that fuel this great Nation, this is basically a no-energy bill.

We are not a have-not Nation in terms of energy. We have the ability, if we wish to, to be close to self-sufficient in energy production for our own consumption in this Nation.

Hypothetically, this bill may do something to reduce the amount of oil that we import, but only hypothetically. We use about 12 million barrels of oil per day that is converted to gasoline, and my guess is, in the year 2020, we are going to use more than 12 million barrels of oil a day to convert to gasoline and diesel fuel. So while it will certainly save some energy, because of the growth, I would argue that we will probably end up using as much imported oil as we do today.

What this bill really is is a recipe for recession. Why do I say that? The cost of fuel is going to go up if this bill does what it is supposed to do, and that is going to be an incentive for recession. The cost of building our homes is going to go up because of all of the new building code restrictions for so-called green buildings in this bill. The cost of electricity is going to go up. The cost of manufacturing our automobiles and our trucks is going to go up.

In 1966, my father's Ford Fairlane 500 got 17 miles to the gallon. It cost about $4,000 in 1966 dollars. That equivalent vehicle today would cost, in the order of magnitude, $25,000. The vehicles that are going to be made to meet this 35-mile-per-gallon standard in the year 2020 are probably going to cost, in order of magnitude, $10,000 to $15,000 more than they do today. That is a recipe for recession.

The cost of appliances is going to go up because of all of the new efficiency standards we are putting in for appliances. And even the cost of light bulbs is going to go up. The light bulbs that light this Chamber right now will be illegal when this bill becomes completely implemented. The incandescent light bulb that you can get for 90 cents or 50 cents at Wal-Mart is going to be outlawed. You will have to pay $8 to $10 for these new fancy light bulbs. That is a cause for recession.

So what happens when all of these costs go up, Mr. Speaker? Jobs go down. Jobs in our real estate and home construction building are going to go down. Jobs in manufacturing are going to go down. Jobs in our automobile assembly industry are going to go down. Jobs in retail sales are going to go down. Costs are going to go up and jobs are going to go down.

And the shame of it is that we could have passed an energy bill in this Congress that we could have all voted for. We could have put some of the things that are in this bill. We are not opposed to some increase in CAFE. We could have had an agreement on CAFE that balanced an increase in supply perhaps by drilling in ANWR so we get more oil production domestically, we get some energy conservation domestically. That is a doable deal. We could have done a coal-to-liquids title in this bill. Vote ``no'' on the bill.

I do thank my good friend, the chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. We disagree on some policies, but we don't disagree on our love for the institution and the love for democracy.

In closing, Mr. Speaker, let me simply say, as I have already said, this is not a have-not Nation, but the energy bill before us today is acting as if we are a have-not Nation.

We can use the domestic resources. We can produce more energy, and yes, we can conserve energy. We can lead the world as we have led the world in the post-World War II era, but this bill is, in my opinion, a recipe for recession, and I would strongly urge a ``no'' vote. And I thank my good friend from Michigan for yielding me the additional time.

Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3541, the Do Not Call Improvement Act. The legislation is simply very straightforward and I believe merits the support of all Members.

The bill removes the requirement for the Federal Trade Commission to remove consumers' phone numbers from the Registry. The original rules for the Registry required consumers to re-register their phone number every 5 years. This was intended to keep the list accurate over the years as numbers were disconnected and reassigned to new customers. The rules as they currently are would result in many millions of Americans being removed from the Do-Not-Call list each year, whether they like it or not. The bill before us changes these rules by requiring that numbers on the Registry remain there, so that people's dinners don't start getting interrupted by telemarketers all of a sudden. At the same time, we direct the FTC to keep the list accurate by periodically ``scrubbing'' the list of invalid and disconnected numbers. I think this strikes the right balance for consumers and the industry.

I urge support for the bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 2601, Do Not Call Registry Fee Extension Act of 2007. I am a cosponsor of the legislation and I want to thank Mr. Stearns for his great work on this bill, and for his leadership on this issue.

I have never seen a legislative proposal move so quickly and achieve such immediate popularity. In the 108th Congress, then-Chairman Tauzin introduced the bill and it became law in less than 2 months. After a court challenge, it was clear that we needed to shore up the FTC's authority, and a bill for that purpose was offered and became law in just 5 days.

I am glad that Mr. Stearns, along with Mr. Rush, Mr. Pickering and Mr. Doyle, have worked with the FTC to reauthorize and improve that program, and I offer my strong support. I am also grateful to the FTC for their great work in keeping dinnertime uninterrupted for me and 145 million others. This is one instance in which Congress has received near-unanimous, bipartisan approval from the public, and I urge all Members to support H.R. 2601.

Madam Speaker, I would ask unanimous consent that we shorten the debate to 15 minutes on each side. We don't have that many speakers and the hour is late. I have a feeling people's minds are not going to be swayed by the eloquence on either side on this debate.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished minority leader from the great State of Ohio (Mr. Boehner).

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

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

Madam Speaker, everybody has said all that needs to be said on this debate; we just haven't said it this third or fourth time that we are here on the House floor.

As the minority leader pointed out, at some point in time it still may be possible to reach a consensus on reauthorizing the SCHIP program because people on both sides of the aisle want to keep the program moving forward. The problem that most Republicans have is that we support the base program for near low-income children between 100 and 200 percent of poverty. We don't think that the SCHIP program, which was a children's health program, should be for adults. We don't think it should be for illegal aliens. We think it should be for children between 100 percent to 200 percent of poverty, and perhaps slightly higher than that if a good-faith effort has been made to cover children in that income bracket.

My friends on the other side of the aisle appear to want to use this as a surrogate for universal health care. In some versions, the original version that came out in the CHAMP bill, they wanted to go as high as 300 and 400 percent of poverty. They continue, although they say they don't want to cover noncitizens, they won't agree to enforcement measures that make that possible. And they don't want adults on the program to have to exit the program in some reasonable time period, so we have the impasse that we have today.

There haven't been many times in our Nation's history that we have postponed a veto override. I think less than 10 percent of the time, maybe even less than 5 percent of the time, but we have done it twice in a row on this particular bill. So we will postpone the bill until the week of the President's State of the Union so there can be more political posturing on the majority side right before the President comes before a joint session of Congress.

This majority is right to try to postpone that vote to that time. It would be better if we went ahead and voted on it tonight, sustained the President's veto tonight so we could then hopefully continue work or start working in a bipartisan way to actually get an SCHIP reauthorization that was more than a 1-month extension at a time.

If we have the vote tonight, the President's veto will be sustained. When we have the vote in January, the President's veto will be sustained. At some point in time we may yet get together and try to work out a compromise that both sides can agree to and have a 435- Member vote. Apparently that will not be any time in the near future.

I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Deal), a member of the Health Subcommittee.

Madam Speaker, I want to yield 3 minutes to the gentlewoman from Illinois (Mrs. Biggert) who has been one of the Republican negotiators on this issue in the informal talks that have been occurring at various times over the last month.

Madam Speaker, I'm going to yield myself 2 minutes.

I want to thank my friend from Illinois for being honest. This is all about politics. It's not about policy. It's not about the children. It's about politics. So I commend him.

I'll yield for 30 seconds, sure.

I respect the gentleman from Illinois. I think we should do more of this, quite frankly.

Madam Speaker, I'm going to yield myself such time as I may consume now to respond to my good friend from Illinois. I was in the House when SCHIP was passed. I was not in the leadership, but I was on the committee. My recollection is a little bit different than my friend from Illinois.

There were some Republicans, I think Senator Hatch was one of the ones in the Senate; Congressman Archer, who was the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. This did come out of the effort to reform welfare as it was then. There was a concern that as we tried to move primarily women who were single head of households off of welfare, if they didn't have a job that had health care, their children, in order for them to work, transition to work, that they needed health care. And President Clinton and the Republican leadership in the House and the Senate did agree that SCHIP was the answer. And it was a bipartisan agreement. I would give the President credit for supporting it, but I would also give the Republican leadership in the House and the Senate credit for supporting it also at that time.

The bill that is before us tonight is not the bill that passed in 1997. We have over 600,000 adults on SCHIP, a children's health insurance program. Rhetorically, my friends on the majority side say they really don't want adults to be covered. But nothing in this bill moves those adults off of SCHIP.

We don't know how many hundreds of thousands of noncitizens are covered. But most people agree that there are hundreds of thousands, if not millions. Nothing in this bill has an enforcement mechanism to move children who are not U.S. citizens off the rolls. Not one thing moves that. And the 200 percent of poverty, the original SCHIP bill was between 100 and 200 percent of poverty. That's still a good principle. There are not 10 million children in America between 100 and 200 percent of poverty that qualify for SCHIP. The most authoritative number is that there may be an additional 800,000.

Now, the current SCHIP bill covers about 6 million children. In order to get to the 10 million number, you have to go way above 200 percent, probably above 300 percent and maybe even as high as 400 percent. So this 10 million number, there are about 80 million children in America. Most of those children, luckily, have health insurance through some sort of a private sector employee-sponsored health insurance program. Six million have it under SCHIP, and then there are several million that have it under Medicaid. But there are not 10 million between 100 and 200 percent of poverty.

Those of us on the Republican side, we support SCHIP. We support the original program. We may even support something expanding it beyond the original program. But we don't support some of the ideas that take it up to as high as 300 to 350 percent of poverty, that cover noncitizens and that cover adults. That's what this debate is all about.

So we hope that we have an opportunity. We hope that we have a veto vote and that we sustain the President's veto, and then maybe my friend from Illinois and myself can actually enter into a bipartisan negotiation that does exactly what he wants to do and what people like myself want to do.

I would yield for 30 seconds.

We support that.

That doesn't mean that we need to continue those waivers.

With that, I would reserve the balance of my time.

Let me inquire how much time I have remaining, Madam Speaker.

I want to yield 4 minutes to a member of the committee and also a member of the ad hoc negotiation team, Mr. Walden of Oregon.

Madam Speaker, I believe we only have two more speakers, so I'm going to reserve my time at this point.

Madam Speaker, I continue to reserve.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

I appreciate the gentleman that just spoke, but let's be factually accurate. There are over 600,000 adults under current law on SCHIP right now. They're not all pregnant women. Now, some of them may be, but not all 600,000, and nothing in this bill moves any adult off of SCHIP. Nothing.

Madam Speaker, with that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished gentleman from the 5th District of the Garden State of New Jersey (Mr. Garrett).

Madam Speaker, what is the order of closing?

I am ready to close after Mr. Pallone.

Madam Speaker, there's a great movie from the sixties or maybe the seventies called ``Cool Hand Luke.'' Paul Newman is Cool Hand Luke, and he gets imprisoned for some minor infraction and he just doesn't conform with the regulations of the prison. And finally in exasperation the prison warden is talking to him in front of the chain gang and utters the famous line, ``What we have here is a failure to communicate.''

Well, what we have here tonight apparently is another failure to communicate. The Republicans in the House of Representatives want to reauthorize SCHIP. Some of the Republicans in the House of Representatives even want to expand SCHIP. But what we don't want to do is make SCHIP the surrogate for universal health care for children that are not in low-income or moderate-income families. We don't want to do that. And the bill before us would do that.

It would cover children up to 300 percent of poverty, explicitly, which is above the median income in this country. And it would not have any substantial reform on what are called ``income disregards.'' An income disregard is, some States have said, well, we're going to disregard this amount of income or we're going to disregard that particular expense. So for all practical purposes if a State chooses to disregard income, then there is no cap, and the bill before us doesn't have reforms in that measure.

The bill before us, in terms of illegal aliens, does have a paragraph that says no illegal alien can receive the benefit. It has that. But it has no enforcement. It's toothless. It's like saying don't go over 55 miles an hour or 60 miles an hour but you don't have a radar policeman to enforce the speed limit.

So what we are saying and what the President of the United States is saying in his veto message is pretty straightforward. Let's continue the SCHIP program. Let's find the children that are below 200 percent of poverty, and let's get them enrolled in the program and perhaps even go as high as 250 percent or 275 percent. Let's find some way to have a real enforcement to make sure that SCHIP is for children and for children of citizens. And then let's find a way to get the adults on the program off the program.

There are some States that cover more adults than children. And, again, my friends on the majority agree that that's not an appropriate thing, but they don't do anything in the bill to reform that.

So when my friend from New Jersey, the distinguished subcommittee chairman, talks about there may be as many as 6 million additional children that could be covered, I very carefully listened to what he said, and I would agree with what he said because he used the words ``Medicaid'' and ``SCHIP.'' Well there are 25 million children covered under Medicaid right now. There may well be another 5 or 6 million children that are eligible for Medicaid that we need to work with on a bipartisan basis to get in Medicaid. But according to HHS, there are only 800,000 eligible for SCHIP. Even according to the CBO, there are only an additional maybe 1.3 million that would be eligible for SCHIP under the bill that the majority is putting on the floor.

So I wish we wouldn't postpone this veto. I wish we would go ahead and have the veto override tonight because we will sustain the veto. And then I wish my good friend John Dingell from Michigan and Mr. Rangel from New York would work with Mr. McCrery and myself and other Members to really come together on a bipartisan basis.

I would like to point out that these negotiations that Mr. Hoyer alluded to did, in fact, happen, but those negotiations were not a conference. This bill is not the result of a conference committee between the House and the Senate. The bill before us is the result of some backroom negotiations and then an effort on an ad hoc basis of some of the senior Members of the majority in this House and some Members of the other body to work with some of our junior Members who had really no official standing but did negotiate in good faith to come up with a compromise. And as Mr. Garrett pointed out, the written proposal the Republicans put forward, I think, to this day has never been answered. Now, I could be wrong on that, but I don't think it has ever been formally addressed.

So I sat in on those negotiations for several days, and what we got was a lot of good feeling talk. But when it came time to put it on paper, the majority wouldn't put it on paper.

So let's not postpone this override. Let's vote down the motion to postpone, and let's have the veto override tonight. And then in the next week or so if we are still in session, let's really start a bipartisan process that is based on the formal processes of the House and the Senate.

With that, I would yield back my time, Madam Speaker.

Madam Speaker, I object to the vote on the ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a quorum is not present.

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the distinguished member of the Rules Committee for yielding to me.

I have, in the 23 years that I have been in this body, engaged in, I would say, approximately two dozen, maybe three dozen, debates on various energy bills. Almost every Congress we have some sort of energy bill that comes before this body.

I have to say that my heart is sad today because, in the debate so far in this Congress on energy legislation, it has been fairly one- sided. It has been the majority trying to put their blueprint for America on energy in the committee and on the floor and in the Rules Committee with really no input and no debate from the minority party.

I understand that the majority in the House has the right to work its will. We are not the other body, the Senate on the other side of the Capitol. We have a Rules Committee that is two to one plus one. We stack the deck so that the majority can make things happen. And that's a good thing.

But the majority has responsibilities. One of the responsibilities is to hear the minority and give the minority the opportunity to have input and to have a debate and have their ideas voted on.

In this Congress on energy legislation, the only Republican amendment that has been debated on the floor of the House is the motion to recommit. In the last energy bill, we were given a motion to recommit and we offered a full substitute that had clean coal technology, alternative fuels technology, that had some real energy, had some supply incentives. That motion to recommit was defeated, but at least it was debated. The rule before us today does not give the minority an option to have a motion to recommit. The rule before us today does not give the minority an option to have a substitute amendment.

Once again we are on the floor of the House with one of the major components of our economy, energy legislation, and it is the majority way or no way. Well, I hope we would vote this rule down and go back to the Rules Committee and let us have either a Republican substitute, a Republican motion to recommit, some amendments, the Shimkus amendment on alternative fuels, the Upton amendment on renewable portfolio standards. They were all offered in the Rules Committee last night. They are substantive and real. They would improve the bill if they were allowed to be made in order. But this rule once again is a closed rule with one amendment, a Democrat substitute, no motion to recommit.

The underlying bill is over a thousand pages. The underlying bill had not been seen in public until about 8:30 last evening. Obviously you can't digest a thousand-page bill overnight. I have been reading the table of contents trying to look at some summaries what is in the bill. Most is recycled. It is

things that have been here before, but there are some new things.

There is some provision for the State of New York, for example, in the tax title that diverts State income taxes that would normally be paid to the Federal Government, they are kept by either the State or the City of New York, and it is worth about $2 billion. There has been no debate on that.

Now, I've got to give Chairman Rangel, I would assume I would give him credit for easing the tax burden of the people of his city and the people of his State. But there's not been a public debate on that. That's just a little $2 billion deal in the tax title of the bill. It may have showed up, it may have been there all along, but I just saw it reading through the summary about 10 minutes ago.

So I don't think, if you're going to have a major policy debate on energy, which is worthwhile, and if the majority wants to change the energy policy, that's worthwhile too. But there ought to be a real debate and there ought to be real amendments, and we ought to let this body vote. This rule doesn't do that. This rule doesn't do that.

And most of the things that are being extolled in the bill are things that were in the energy policy act 2 years ago. They're being extended. They're being expanded. That may or may not be a good thing, but we ought to have a debate about it.

Do we really want to put a 36-billion gallon mandate for renewable fuels that can't be met by the current technology on the backs of the American people? This bill does that.

I'm all for renewable fuels. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 had an $8- billion gallon mandate for renewable fuels. The market is exceeding that. But it's a stretch to go from 8 billion, which is current law, to 36 billion. And the technology doesn't currently exist. So maybe we ought to have a debate, maybe we ought to have some off-ramps, some triggers that we set the goal, but make sure that we have the ability to meet that goal before we put that mandate in.

On the renewable portfolio standard for electricity generators, it only applies to investor owned; doesn't apply to nonprofits and to co- ops. I don't think that's a good idea. It doesn't allow all forms of renewable. For example, new hydro is not included as a renewable. You know, some sort of a clean coal alternative which would be an alternative form is not included. It's very restrictive.

The wind part of this bill, we're for wind power. The Energy Policy Act of 2005 expanded the tax credit for wind. This bill rescinds part of that. So there's a renewable form that they're being regressive.

So just in summary, I would hope that the majority understands that being in the majority gives you the right to set the agenda, but it shouldn't give you the right to stifle debate so that the minority has absolutely no input. And in this bill that's before us today, the minority in the House of Representatives has had zero, nada, zip, no input; and that's not good for democracy.

So I hope that we'll defeat the rule, take it back to the Rules Committee, let's have a debate. Let's have some amendments made in order and then bring a real energy bill that's bipartisan back to the floor of the House of Representatives.