Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

I respectfully disagree with our distinguished majority leader. The bill before us is a change. It may be historic, but it is not positive. We are moving from a market-based energy policy, which has served this country well for over 150 years, to a government-mandated energy policy.

We are mandating 36 billion gallons of biofuels which don't exist and probably won't exist. We are mandating that 15 percent of all investor- owned utilities be generated by renewable means, where in some States that is physically impossible. We are mandating that we improve automobile fuel economy to 35 miles per gallon by a date certain, which, if that is technically feasible, it is going to be very expensive and probably raise the average price of an automobile several thousands of dollars.

We are mandating all of these things in the interests of energy security, which is a noble goal. I think we would be better off developing the domestic resources of our great land, just like it says up there in the quote from Daniel Webster, instead of engaging in government mandates which will raise costs and probably not increase supplies.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Education and Workforce Committee, the gentleman from California (Mr. McKeon).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished Member from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce).

I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Upton, from the great State of Michigan.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Science Committee, Mr. Hall of Rockwall, Texas.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that Mr. McCrery be allowed to control the time on the minority side.

I yield 1 minute to a distinguished member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Murphy of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Speaker, I want to yield 2 minutes to a member of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Ryan of Wisconsin.

Mr. Speaker, I want to yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished member of the committee from the great State of Illinois (Mr. Shimkus).

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize for 1 minute the gentlelady from the Mountain State of West Virginia (Mrs. Capito).

Mr. Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Radanovich of California.

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

Mr. Speaker, we have before us a bill that has not gone through the regular process in the House of Representatives. That almost goes without saying. This is not a conference report. It is the result of some negotiations primarily between select Members of the majority here in the House and the majority in the Senate. It does put this Nation on a different path. It puts us

on a path of moving away from market-based, free capital energy production to government mandates. Now, that may be what the majority of the House of Representatives wants to do, but I don't think it is what the American people want to do.

We have a 36 billion biofuels mandate with submandates for separate categories of biofuels that under current technology simply doesn't exist, can't be met. We already have an ethanol mandate from the Energy Policy Act of 2005 that has exceeded its wildest expectation in terms of spurring incentives for ethanol. In fact, it's been so successful, the price of corn has doubled and cattle producers and chicken producers, hog farmers are having trouble buying feed for their animals because of the increase in the price of corn.

We have a mandate in this bill for Federal energy efficiency building code standards with the goal by a date certain of having most buildings in the United States on a net basis not using any energy at all. There doesn't appear to be a cost-effective benefit analysis requirement in that particular mandate.

As I have already said, we have the mandate to increase fuel efficiency for our cars and trucks to 35 miles a gallon by the year 2020. It does maintain a separate standard for trucks and cars. We need to thank Chairman Dingell for making that happen in negotiations with the Senate. But this mandate is technically possible to meet. Keep in mind that under current regulations there are only eight cars and trucks in the United States that meet 35 miles to the gallon. We are certainly going to raise the price of cars and trucks and probably reduce the amount of jobs in this country that are effective in the automobile assembly and manufacture and their vendor components industry. We have appliance standards.

I could go on and on, Mr. Speaker. Suffice it to say I don't think the country wants the government controlling energy, and that's what this bill leads us to. I hope we would vote against it.

Mr. Speaker, I believe I have 4 minutes remaining, 1 of which will be used by the minority leader to close. My other speaker, Mr. Blunt, is not on the floor, so I would reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, in the interest of comity, the Republican whip is not on the floor, so I yield myself 3 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I want to talk about the renewable portfolio standard that is in the bill. This would require investor-owned utilities in the country to generate 15 percent of their electricity by renewable means by a date certain. And there was a phase-in so that beginning, I believe, in 2010 or 2011 there is a cascade stair step that each year they have to meet a higher percentage. Information that we have received from the Department of Energy indicates that of the 50 States, there are only seven that currently meet that requirement. Those are Alaska, Maine, Montana, Nebraska, Oregon, Tennessee, Washington, Vermont, and California. There is another handful of States that come close: North Dakota, New Hampshire, Wyoming, New Mexico, Idaho, South Dakota, Alabama, and Iowa all meet within 10 percent to 8 percent. The rest of the States, which is approximately 40 States, don't even come close, and some of them, like Delaware and Missouri, are at 0 percent.

So you would think that a 15 percent requirement might be doable. The problem is definitional, what is defined as ``renewable.'' New hydro is not defined as renewable. New nuclear is not defined as renewable. New clean coal technology is not defined as a renewable. So it has to be from geothermal, wind power, solar power, or biomass or hydro refitting. Now, when you look at it in that regard, this 15 percent requirement in certain parts of the country is almost impossible to meet.

To compound the problem, the legislation before us says that States that don't meet the requirement can't go out; they can only buy credits to offset that requirement. I believe it says up to 27 percent of their amount that they have to meet. So you are going to put a State like Florida, a State like Georgia, some of the States that are at the lower end of the curve, Arizona, Indiana, Ohio, West Virginia, Illinois, Utah, Maryland, New Jersey, Kentucky, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, these States are all somewhere between 0 to 2 percent. They're simply not going to be able to do it. They are not going to be able to do it.

So while a renewable portfolio standard for electricity generation might seem like it's a wise idea in principle, when you put it into actuality, it is going to be almost an impossible idea to meet. And this bill says ``tough.'' So I would hope that we vote ``no'' on the bill.

Since January the process for energy legislation has been a disgrace. H.R. 6 was never considered by any Committees, no hearings no mark-ups. H.R. 3221, a second try at an energy bill, was also bad. Only hours notice of the bill before mark-up; limited floor amendments; many bad provisions never considered in hearings; final passage on a Saturday with many members absent.

The process since then has been far worse. I am aware of no Member discussions since August 4. If they have taken place no Member on my side of the aisle was invited or informed. The result: the terrible legislation before us today.

The Pelosi ``energy bill'' consciously raises consumer costs for fuel, vehicles, and electricity while reducing consumer choices. It favors a few special interest investors at the expense of ordinary Americans and the U.S. economy.

On CAFE: The bill raises fuel efficiency standards so high that consumers will face only three possible consequences: far smaller cars and trucks, far more expensive cars and trucks, or--more likely--both.

I'm told that all but 8 out of some 350 models currently available in American showrooms would be banned from the market as the new fuel standards fully phase in. Moderate income consumers will be hardest hit. They don't buy hybrids today because the multi-thousand dollar premium for electric hybrid technology cannot pay for itself in fuel savings, even at today's sky-high fuel costs.

Because consumers will prefer their older vehicles that match their needs better than the

new car inventory, they will postpone trading in as long as possible. New car sales will plummet; manufacturing companies and their employees will suffer. The ones who won't agree are simply in denial.

On renewable fuel mandates: The levels of corn-based and other biofuels required to be part of the U.S. fuel mix will drive up all fuel costs dramatically, even over today's high prices. Diverting corn from food and feed use to fuel has already cost consumers plenty in rising chicken, turkey, beef, and soft drink prices. This bill will only make that problem worse.

It also mandates advanced biofuels that exist today only in laboratories and which may never be commercially available. It's like passing a law mandating that a horse not even born yet grow up to win the Kentucky Derby. The only way to do that is to bar other horses from the competition, as this bill does.

On the Renewable Electricity Mandate: The bill would require electric companies across the United States (except in Hawaii and Alaska--they have special carve-outs) to generate 15 percent of their power from ``renewable energy.''

States that have the natural renewable resource base needed to meet such mandates already have them under state law. Remaining States that cannot meet the standard will have to buy their way out at consumer expense, as the bill provides.

While the bill has some non-controversial energy efficiency provisions some sections are particularly harmful to consumers and small businesses.

A section on regional standards for HVAC equipment would authorize DOE to create a program that could lead to penalties and lawsuits aimed at the small businesses in every Congressional district that install and repair our air conditioners and heat pumps.

The punishment would likely kick in if the repairman installs, the wrong air conditioner, e.g., a Georgia-rated air conditioner on the wrong side of the Florida state line. It would dictate efficiency levels by state or region without regard to price, size, or even energy savings payback.

Another provision gives DOE authority to dictate energy efficiency standards for manufactured housing. HUD already has a successful program that is improving efficiency while keeping manufactured housing affordable.

DOE's ``price-is-no-object'' track record on energy efficiency could mean that manufactured housing will no longer be affordable for the moderate income Americans who rely on it today. And jobs will be lost.

Bad as the bill was that passed the House on August 4, this one is far worse. Vote ``no'', do not be tempted.

Mr. Speaker, to close debate on the minority side, I

yield 1 minute to the distinguished minority leader from the Buckeye State of Ohio, the Honorable John Boehner.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Illinois for giving me a few moments to speak on this bill.

I want to congratulate the sponsor of this bill, as well as the Chairman and Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials on coming to agreement on this legislation. Their consensus work is the culmination of 6 weeks of talks among majority and minority Members and staff as well as affected private stakeholders. Significant improvements have been made that make this legislation workable from a realistic and practical standpoint. I support these changes and urge my colleagues to do so as well.

A hearing before the Subcommittee on Environment and Hazardous Materials made clear the serious domestic health concerns that elemental mercury pollution presents when it is mishandled in other, less developed countries. Specifically, this form of mercury converts into neuro-toxic, methyl-mercury that comes back to the United States in the form of tainted fish and polluted air.

This legislation attempts to break this global transport cycle by banning the export of elemental mercury in 2010. It does not cover coal exports and is not intended to cover fly ash exports from coal combustion, or elemental mercury in manufactured consumer products.

This bill also, importantly, assures that domestic stocks of elemental mercury--which currently are a valuable commodity--have some place to safely go. Under the consensus language we are considering, the Department of Energy--which has experience storing elemental mercury--is directed to set up a domestic storage option that will open when the ban commences. Further, the legislation does not preclude private storage solutions. I am glad that this bill allows enterprising folks to facilitate good environmental policy.

In addition, I am pleased this bill recognizes that we should not punish people who do the right thing. Under the legislation we are considering today, private entities wishing to take advantage of the DOE-sponsored storage option must pay DOE for the privilege, but in return are indemnified against any environmental damage that is caused once DOE takes possession of the elemental mercury. This is common sense policy and a key feature of ensuring that the proper handling and safe long-term storage of elemental mercury occur.

Mr. Speaker, I am pleased that the Energy and Commerce Committee has produced another example of compromise, bipartisan legislation. It represents serious give and take by all parties. I hope that efforts like this will continue to be more the norm than the exception throughout this Congress.

I urge all my colleagues to support H.R. 1534.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H.R. 3403, the ``911 Modernization and Public Safety Act of 2007.''

Each time a new communications technology arrives on the market, we must adapt our 911 system and our laws to accommodate it. In 1999, Congress passed the Wireless Communications and Public Safety Act to ensure that emergency 911 calls made from wireless phones would go to the nearest Public Safety Answering Point or ``PSAP''.

Today, Voice-over-Internet-Protocol is revolutionizing the way we communicate by adding the flexibility and innovation of the Internet to the traditional phone call. However, unlike wireless carriers, VoIP providers have no rights to interconnect with the 911 infrastructure and only a handful of 911 centers were prepared to receive VoIP calls, until recently. This left VoIP providers with no easy way to deliver 911 or E-911 service to their subscribers.

After people using VoIP phones were unable to call 911 when they needed help, the FCC responded in June 2005 by requiring VoIP providers to incorporate E-911 capability into their service. While this forced VoIP providers to deploy E-911 access to almost all of their subscribers through commercial agreements with third parties, the FCC did not have the authority to address all of the important issues.

That is why the House Energy and Commerce Committee passed H.R. 3403. This bill seeks to better ensure that consumers using VoIP service can access enhanced 911 emergency services. It puts VoIP providers on the same legal footing as wireless carriers and gives providers the same access as wireless, at the same rates, terms and conditions. It gives VoIP carriers and PSAPs receiving the VoIP 911 calls the same liability protection that is afforded to wireless calls. The bill allows VoIP providers to join wireless carriers in a narrow exemption from the Customer Proprietary Network Information Laws, so that they can transmit customer name and location information during an emergency call. The bill also allows the FCC to delegate to states enforcement of regulations implementing VoIP 911, without disrupting the interstate nature of VoIP service.

In addition to ensuring the success of VoIP E-911, H.R. 3403 takes strong steps to improve our 911 system going forward. First, the bill will stop states from raiding their 911 funds by prohibiting states from spending the 911 line-item fee they collect on phone bills for any purpose other than improvements to the 911 system. Second, the bill directs the E-911 Coordination and Implementation Office to develop a nationwide migration plan to an IP-enabled network. An Internet-based emergency network will enhance public safety by allowing for greater flexibility in the types and amount of information that may be transmitted to emergency service providers. Finally, H.R. 3403 alters an existing grant program to allow PSAPs to obtain federal funding for IP-enabled emergency networks.

H.R. 3403, the ``911 Modernization and Public Safety Act of 2007'' is about public safety. I want to praise the work of the bill's sponsor, Congressman Bart Gordon, who has provided strong leadership in addressing the VoIP E-911 challenge. I also commend the House co-chairs of the Congressional E-911 Caucus: Congresswoman Eshoo and Congressman Shimkus, for their determined work to advance all 911 issues. I would also like to thank the Telecommunications Subcommittee Chairman Mr. Ed Markey and the chairman of the full committee, Mr. John Dingell, and their staffs, for their leadership and commitment to working with our side in a bipartisan fashion on this bill.

H.R. 3403 is an important piece of legislation and I urge my colleagues to vote for it to become law.

I thank the distinguished gentleman from Virginia, the former chairman of the Agriculture Committee, one of the senior members of the Judiciary Committee.

I want to, in a somewhat milder vein, share the concerns that Mr. Goodlatte shared about the process. When I agreed to be the principal Republican sponsor of this legislation, I asked and was told that there would be a committee markup in the Judiciary Committee and that there would be amendments made in order. So I was a little bit surprised last week to find that this was going to be on the Suspension Calendar and expressed that surprise to Ms. Wasserman Schultz and her staff.

Having said that, there have been bipartisan discussions, negotiations. There have been changes made in the bill as originally introduced. It is a good bill. And I am proud to be the senior Republican sponsor.

This bill needs to be passed. I will agree with Mr. Goodlatte that it's not a perfect bill, and I'll agree that had there been a committee markup or a subcommittee markup and a bipartisan markup amendment process, some of the issues would have been addressed a little bit differently. I'll agree with that.

But having said that, let's look at what's positive in the bill. And let's compare the bill to current law. There are over 3 million images of child pornography on the Internet right now. Three million. And in the last Congress, as chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee, under my direct request as chairman, the Oversight and Investigations Subcommittee held nine hearings on the problem of Internet child pornography. And it's more than a problem. It is a vicious, malicious, virus, viral disease that has the potential to destroy our children. And at some point in time we have to do something. And this bill, the PROTECT bill that's before us this afternoon, is a good first start.

We found out in our hearings last year that the various State and Federal agencies didn't have enough resources. We found out that they didn't coordinate. And so this bill before us, as my good friend, Mr. Goodlatte, has pointed out, it does set up a new special counsel office in the Justice Department. And normally that would probably not be a good thing to do. But in this case, given the lack of coordination under current law, at a minimum, I think it's acceptable. And I personally think that it's commendable.

We give additional resources. Not one witness in our hearings last year said that there were sufficient financial resources. The bill before us authorizes, over the course of the next 8 years, over 1 billion additional dollars to fight this infestation of child pornography. It sets up an additional $400 million to increase funding over the next 8 years for the Federal law enforcement agencies: the FBI's Innocent Images Unit, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the United States Postal Service. These are the Federal agencies that are at the forefront in investigating Internet child pornography.

The bill also authorizes increased funding for new forensic computer laboratories. One of the things that we found out is that there just wasn't enough law enforcement laboratory capability in terms of forensics to track down the information that was being provided by the agents in the field. This bill recommends and authorizes an additional $7 million each year for 2008 through 2015 for new national forensic computer laboratories.

We also found out, as I pointed out, that some of these task forces that have been set up and are well intentioned simply didn't have the resources that they needed. So the bill before us authorizes over $600 million over the next 8 years on a staggered basis for these Internet Crimes Against Children, or ICAC, task forces. That is a huge improvement over the current situation, and I don't think any Member of Congress is going to oppose that.

This bill provides additional funding for Federal and State law enforcement, greater coordination of the overall United States law enforcement effort at both the State, Federal, and local level. It establishes a Special Counsel office that I have already talked about. And I want to comment on that.

I agree with what Mr. Goodlatte said that the current task force in the current system in terms of allocating resources is doing an acceptable job. So the Special Counsel will coordinate with them. The Special Counsel will have the ability to sign off, but it doesn't have the ability to unilaterally decide where these additional funds are going to go for the very reasons that Mr. Goodlatte said in his statement a few minutes ago.

The bill before us brings additional resources that are vitally needed to the fight against the scourge of child pornography on the Internet. Almost all of us have children or grandchildren. And

when you go on the Internet today and you type in www.snowwhite.com, you may well get a pornographic child pornography site. Now, that's unacceptable. It's unacceptable to every Member on both sides of the aisle and both sides of the other body, our friends on the other side of this Capitol.

This bill before us may not be a perfect bill, but it is time to act. It is a good start. Anything can be improved.

Again, I respect the process questions that have been raised. I have some of those same questions about some issues under the committee that I serve on as jurisdiction. But in this case it really is time to protect our children. It really is time to move forward. And if we have a roll call vote, I hope every Member of the House of Representatives votes ``yes'' on the PROTECT Act because it is a huge step forward in protecting our children.

I thank my good friend Mr. Goodlatte for yielding to me.

Thank you, Congresswoman Wasserman-Schultz, for your hard work and dedication to this bill.

Almost 2 years ago, the Energy and Commerce Committee began a wide- ranging investigation of Internet child pornography. During our investigation, we had nine hearings and interviewed numerous witnesses involved in the fight against child sexual exploitation: Federal and local law enforcement, Federal and local prosecutors, victims, educators, Internet service providers, and financial institutions.

This investigation helped expose the epidemic that is Internet child pornography. At that time, we learned that the Internet contained approximately three million images of child pornography. Law enforcement testified to the Committee that the images were becoming increasingly violent in nature, and that the victims in the photos were getting younger, some as young as 2 years old.

Although law enforcement is working to tackle the epidemic of abuse that exists on the Internet, their resources are taxed, because predators around the world are working just as diligently to continue flooding the Internet with images of child sexual abuse.

I am proud to be the lead cosponsor of the PROTECT Act, because this bill provides the resources that are so desperately needed by law enforcement to take the fight to those predators who seek to exploit and abuse children, often for their own financial gain. We will never win the battle against the sexual exploitation of children unless we arm law enforcement with the necessary resources and tools to bring these predators to justice.

First, the PROTECT Act authorizes, over fiscal years 2008 to 2015, $400,000,000 in increased funding to the Federal law enforcement agencies--FBI's Innocent Images Unit, Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and the United States Postal Service--that are at the forefront in investigating Internet child pornography. The funding is directed for the hiring of additional, full-time agents to work child exploitation cases.

The bill also authorizes increased funding for forensic computer labs. One of the key findings in the Energy and Commerce Committee's investigation of Internet child pornography is that law enforcement investigations were often hampered by the backlog at forensic computer labs. This backlog sometimes made it difficult for law enforcement to identify predators or obtain subpoenas in a timely manner--a delay that endangers the welfare and safety of the victims of Internet child pornography. To address this problem, the PROTECT Act authorizes $7,000,000 for fiscal years 2008 to 2015 for new regional forensic computer labs.

The Energy and Commerce Committee's investigation also found that just as important as the Federal law enforcement effort against child pornography is the effort of State and local law enforcement, in particular, the effort of the state Internet Crimes Against Children, or ICAC task forces. In fact, 70 percent of the cases involving the sexual exploitation of children over the Internet are prosecuted at the state level. While the Department of Justice has provided funding for these ICACs through a grant program, the funding nowhere near matched the needs of these state task forces.

Now, through the PROTECT Act, these task forces will finally receive the support they need. The bill authorizes over $600,000,0000 in new funding for ICACs over fiscal years 2008 to 2015. I believe the PROTECT Act's formula for allocating this funding among states strikes the right balance between ensuring a stable base of funding for the individual ICACs and giving the Justice Department the flexibility to direct funds based on need.

Not only does the bill provide additional funding for Federal and State law enforcement, it also provides greater coordination of the overall United States law enforcement effort--Federal, State, and local--to investigate and prosecute child sexual exploitation crimes. The bill establishes a Special Counsel office within the Justice Department that is charged with coordinating the efforts and strategy of the Department of Justice and Federal and State law enforcement agencies when investigating child exploitation crimes. While I do not believe that the creation of a new Federal office is always the best solution to a problem, in this instance, I believe that this office will help to ensure that the various law enforcement agencies are receiving the assistance they need and are coordinating their investigations in a way that ensures their valuable resources are not being wasted.

This bill brings incredible resources to bear in the fight against child sexual exploitation. We must ensure that the efforts of predators are more than matched by an aggressive law enforcement strategy to bring these criminals to justice. Our children deserve nothing less. For this reason, I urge my colleagues to support the PROTECT Act and make the Internet a safer place for our children.

Mr. Speaker, we are here once again on an issue that should have been solved, like, March of this year.

An emergency meeting of the Rules Committee was noticed at 7:30 last evening to be commenced at 8:30. That meeting lasted until midnight.

Dr. Michael Burgess, a member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, attended with me to represent the Energy and Commerce Committee in the negotiations before the Rules Committee. He offered an amendment to this bill and was told it was not in order because he didn't get it in time. Didn't get it in time. An emergency meeting that is noticed at 7:30, that starts at 8:30, that lasts till midnight, Dr. Burgess shows up with his amendment and is told, I am sorry, we can't have your amendment in order because it wasn't in time. We didn't even know there was going to be a meeting until 7:30.

Once again, we have a closed rule, which means there are no amendments made in order. Once again, we have a bill that was not seen, at least by those of us on the minority side, until approximately 7 to 7:15 last evening. Once again, we have a bill where there have been really no bipartisan negotiations. There have been some consultations with certain members of the minority party, I have to admit that.

I don't know what the distance is from here to there, but I am going to guess it's about 12 feet. Let's see. It's 18 feet. Now, if I really wanted to negotiate, and I was in the majority, I would say, let's get together and talk. I would reach out to my left and I would reach out to my right, each of us come about 9 feet, we could negotiate.

But here is how the Democrats do it. They haven't even said we wanted you to negotiate, but if they did, they head out the door. They are going around the world to meet us halfway when they could just do it 9 feet apart. I don't understand that.

Let's vote the rule down. Then let's get together and really negotiate.

Now, I want to give Ms. Slaughter some credit. She was born in Texas. Her instincts are right. We did get a motion to recommit today, for the first time. When we get to the motion to recommit, we are going to have an opportunity to put forward a proposal that is positive for SCHIP that has been put together by the Republicans.

I will tell my friends on the majority side, it's not going to be a gimmick. I think it will say ``forthwith,'' which means if we adopt it, we vote on it.

So I look forward to the debate, and I look forward to the motion to recommit. If we really want a bill the President would sign, I would say vote for the motion to recommit. But right now, vote against the rule so we can get some amendments made in order and have a real debate.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Deal), ranking member of the Subcommittee on Health, and I ask unanimous consent that he control the minority time for the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Madam Speaker, could I ask the amount of time remaining on all sides.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

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

I want to talk about enforcement of this 300 percent above the poverty line. The people that wrote the bill claimed that we have got this hard cap above 300 percent in terms of family income.

But if you look on page 76 of the bill, the first part of it, starting with line 5, says, ``no payment shall be made under this section for any expenditures for providing child health assistance or health benefits coverage for a targeted low-income child whose effective family income would exceed 300 percent of the poverty line.''

That sounds okay, but then here is the gotcha, beginning on line 13, ``but for the application of a general exclusion of a block of income that is not determined by type of expense or type of income.''

So you leave it up to the States to say you can't have an income level over 300 percent, but you can deduct $20,000 for a housing allowance or you can deduct $15,000 for shelter or whatever.

So what you've got here is the classic bait and switch. I would say that the majority has listened to some of the concerns of the minority, but you're not really ready to address them substantively. You put the right verbiage in the first paragraph and then you take it away in the second. At some point in time we need to sit down together and really work these things out to make sure that you not only have the verbiage, you also have the enforcement. Now when that day comes, we will have a bipartisan bill. But that day is not today.

Madam Speaker, I'd like to yield 2 minutes to the distinguished policy chairman of the Republican Conference, Congressman McCotter.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Madam Speaker, I think I only have 2 minutes left.

I reserve that time.

Madam Speaker, may I inquire as to the order of close.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

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

Madam Speaker, I'm reminded of a homeowner who is getting ready to sell their home. It's a little older shop and it's shopworn and has not seen its best day. So they have a building inspector come out to inspect the home before they put it up for market. And the inspector gives the report, and the inspector says, ``You've got some major termite damage in the walls, and I think you need to really rebuild the walls.''

And the homeowner says, ``We'll paint over it.''

He says, ``Your plumbing is all rusted out. I think you really need to replace the plumbing.''

And the homeowner says, ``We'll paint over it.''

Then he says, ``I think your insulation and your electrical system's very frayed and you need to replace it.''

And the homeowner says, ``Well, we'll paint over it.''

What we have here today is basically the same bill that we had last week where we sustained the President's veto. Our friends on the majority side of the aisle have just painted over it.

Now, they are saying the right rhetorical things. They're saying that nobody above 300 percent of poverty is going to get a benefit, but they then disregard the enforcement mechanisms that would enforce that.

They say in section 605 that no illegal alien is going to get a benefit, but then they change the enforcement mechanisms so that if somebody has a Social Security card and a name to it, that's all they have to do to prove citizenship, and the Social Security Administration, rightfully so, says that is really not a proof of citizenship if you are able to get a Social Security card.

And they claim that they're going to take the adults off the program within a year, but according to the CBO, at least a half million adults are still going to be on the program in 5 years.

So it's the same bill with a little bit different paint. In Texas we have a saying, ``You can put lipstick on a pig, but it's still a pig.''

This bill is a pig. It may be a good pig. It may be a nice pig. It may be intended to be the right kind of pig. But it's still a pig.

Vote ``no'' on the bill.

Madam Speaker, to close the debate on the minority side, I'm very pleased to yield 1 minute to the distinguished minority leader from the great State of Ohio (Mr. Boehner).

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

In its current form I am.

Madam Speaker, I appreciate my good friend, Mr. Dingell, asking that the motion to recommit be read. I did the same thing in committee on the 593-page bill, so I think payback is fair. So I don't have a problem with that. I hope that the Members in the Chamber actually listened to the reading of the Clerk, because those that did will agree with me on the following things.

First of all, we have taken the 293-page bill that we got at approximately 7 p.m. last evening and left most of it untouched. We have changed approximately 15 pages of a 293-page bill. We have listened carefully to our friends on the majority side at what they say they want, and we have tried to implement those changes in this motion to recommit.

We start out with the fact that our friends on the majority side agree with us that SCHIP should be for the poor and the near-poor in American society. This motion to recommit eliminates the loophole for income-disregards that would allow States to actually cover children and families in all probability well above 300 percent. So we have an elimination action in this motion to recommit that would eliminate that loophole.

We also believe that before you go above 200 percent of poverty, you should cover the children below 200 percent of poverty, so we have a requirement in the motion to recommit that States cannot go above 200 percent of poverty until they have covered at least 90 percent of the eligible SCHIP and Medicare children below 200 percent of the poverty line.

We take statements like Chairman Rangel of the Ways and Means Committee and Chairman Dingell of the Energy and Commerce Committee at face value when they say they don't want illegal aliens to be covered in the bill. We put a requirement in the motion to recommit that applies the same citizenship documentation requirements for SCHIP as we have for Medicaid in the Deficit Reduction Act and applies those to the 16 States that it does not currently apply to.

We also take the majority at their word when they say that they really want SCHIP to be for children. The motion to recommit would take all adults off the program within 1 year except for pregnant women. We would continue to cover pregnant women under the SCHIP program.

We have a concern about when you begin to go above 200 percent of poverty that you actually begin to crowd out the private insurance market, so we do have a requirement in the motion to recommit that if a State wants to go above 200 percent of poverty, they have to have, they must have, a premium support assistance program that would give those families that have private insurance the option to continue to receive the private insurance, and they get premium assistance from that State government.

Finally, the motion to recommit has been scored by the CBO as saving at least $10 billion from the pending bill.

Also, in full disclosure, I need to point out we do not change in the motion to recommit the pay-for, so the portion of the underlying bill that does have a tobacco tax, we do not touch that. We don't try to move it up, we don't try to move it down, we don't try to substitute for it. The motion to recommit that we offered in August had that same provision, but I think in the interests of full disclosure, we need to put that on the table.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to comment on one aspect of H.R. 1483: the effect of the designation of National Heritage Areas on the development and siting of needed energy infrastructure. Some of these National Heritage Areas fall within National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors that were recently designated by the Department of Energy. Development and siting of new electric transmission was an important part of the Energy Policy Act of 2005, and the designation of National Interest Electric Transmission Corridors is a critical component in getting that new transmission built.

Originally, there was concern that the designation of National Heritage Areas could impede the development of new energy infrastructure, even if that infrastructure were in a National Interest Electric Transmission Corridor. Bipartisan compromise language that has been added to the bill, along with language in the Committee Report accompanying H.R. 1483, makes it clear that the designation of a National Heritage Area should not impede the development of necessary energy infrastructure. Specifically, I understand that compromise language has been added to clarify that nothing in the bill ``alters any duly adopted land use regulation, approved land use plan, or other regulatory authority (such as the authority to make safety improvements or increase the capacity of existing roads or to construct new roads) of any Federal, State, Tribal, or local agency, or conveys any land use or other regulatory authority to any local coordinating entity, including but not necessarily limited to development and management of energy or water or water-related infrastructure.'' I believe that this language and the accompanying report language makes it clear that a State public utility commission or the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission should not consider the fact that an area is a National Heritage Area as a basis to deny siting of energy infrastructure.

I commend the bill's authors for including this important clarification.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 1808. I am proud to be the first non-Georgian sponsor of the bill after the entire Georgia delegation.

I knew Congressman Norwood very well. He was one of my very best friends in the House. I can think of no better tribute than to name the Veterans Affairs Center at One Freedom Way in Augusta the Charlie Norwood Medical Center.

Congressman Norwood was a strong advocate for veterans. He was a veteran himself. He was very active in health care issues and veterans health care issues on the House floor. This is a fitting tribute to his service in the Congress and his service to the country when he was in the military and served so nobly and ably in Vietnam.

I rise in strong support and hope we get unanimous support for this bill at the appropriate time.

I have had the pleasure of working with many great men and women in my 22 years in the House, and I can say with all honesty that Charlie Norwood was one of the best. I knew Charlie well, both as an outspoken member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and a good friend. His devotion to people of the Tenth District of Georgia was undeniable, as was his passion for improving this country's healthcare and the lives of its veterans.

Charlie Norwood's service to his country began long before his election to the House of Representatives. Charlie volunteered to serve in the United States Dental Corp during the Vietnam War. Captain Norwood provided dental, emergency medical, and surgical care for United States personnel, Vietnamese civilians, and prisoners-of-war. The Dental Corp operating procedures that he helped develop while in combat conditions have now become standard.

Upon returning stateside, Charlie settled in the Augusta area and set up a private dental practice serving local residents as well as providing care for military personnel, retirees, and dependents under Department of Defense programs and for low-income patients under Georgia Medicaid. His work on behalf of veterans and military personnel continued throughout his twelve years in the House of Representatives.

Throughout his congressional service from 1995 to 2007, Congressman Norwood repeatedly defeated attempts to reduce Federal support for the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Augusta, Georgia. I think it only appropriate that we gather here today to honor the memory of this great man by placing his name on the institution that he fought so hard for. I cannot think of a more fitting tribute to Congressman Charlie Norwood.

Mr. Speaker, I have had the pleasure of working with many great men and women in my 22 years in the House, and I can say with all honesty that Charlie Norwood was one of the best. I knew Charlie well, both as an outspoken member of the Energy and Commerce Committee and a good friend. His devotion to people of the Tenth District of Georgia was undeniable, as was his passion for improving this country's healthcare and the lives of its veterans.

Charlie Norwood's service to his country began long before his election to the House of Representatives. Charlie volunteered to serve in the United States Dental Corps during the Vietnam War. Captain Norwood provided dental, emergency medical, and surgical care for United States personnel, Vietnamese civilians, and prisoners-of-war. The Dental Corps operating procedures that he helped develop while in combat conditions have now become standard.

Upon returning stateside, Charlie settled in the Augusta area and set up a private dental practice serving local residents as well as providing care for military personnel, retirees, and dependents under Department of Defense programs and for low-income patients under Georgia Medicaid. His work on behalf of veterans and military personnel continued throughout his twelve years in the House of Representatives.

Throughout his congressional service from 1995 to 2007, Congressman Norwood repeatedly defeated attempts to reduce Federal support for the Department of Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Augusta, Georgia. I think it only appropriate that we gather here today to honor the memory of this great man by placing his name on the institution that he fought so hard for. I cannot think of a more fitting tribute to Congressman Charlie Norwood.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent, of the 30 minutes that I control, I yield 15 minutes of that to the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. McCrery of Louisiana, to control.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished ranking member of the Health Subcommittee of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Deal of Georgia.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to a distinguished member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mrs. Blackburn of Tennessee.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to a distinguished member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Mr. Walden of Oregon.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished Congressman from Nebraska (Mr. Fortenberry).

Madam Speaker, I am proud to yield 1 minute to a distinguished member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg).

Madam Speaker, I would like to yield 1 minute to the distinguished member of the Energy and Commerce Committee, Dr. Burgess of Denton, Texas.

Madam Speaker, I have a parliamentary inquiry.

Madam Speaker, is it acceptable under the rule that we are operating under, as long as we control time, to recognize a Member more than once as long as you control the time?

I'm not sure I understand. Let me rephrase my question.

I want to recognize myself now and then recognize myself later in the debate, because my speakers aren't here. Is that acceptable, Madam Speaker?

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Madam Speaker, one of the things that has been talked about in this debate is that the pending bill before us does not allow illegal aliens to receive benefits, and there is a section in the bill, section 605 that says that. But it has no enforcement. And in another part of the bill the requirement for citizenship verification is repealed, and the substitution for that is a requirement that a beneficiary or potential beneficiary simply show a Social Security number.

And as we all know, there are millions of fraudulent Social Security numbers floating around. So when we actually do get down to negotiating the conference after this veto is sustained, I hope that my friends in the majority will work with us in the minority to make sure that illegal aliens do not get benefits and that we have the appropriate enforcement mechanism in the bill that we send to the President.

With that, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I just have two speakers left, the distinguished minority leader and myself. I'm prepared to do the mini-close. I assume that Ms. Pelosi is going to close for the majority, so we're kind of in a holding pattern here.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 4 minutes.

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

Madam Speaker, what we have today is a classic case of a Washington, DC, nonintersecting conversation. Since the President vetoed this bill several weeks ago, my friends on the majority side have spent 2 weeks encouraging outside groups and perhaps their political arm, I am not sure about that, to spend millions of dollars in television and radio ads bombarding targeted Republicans to get them to change their vote.

Now, that is only the sixth time in history that we know of that a veto has not been brought to the floor immediately on the President's veto. The result is going to be that when we get to the vote in the next hour or so, the next 30 minutes or so, the President's veto will be sustained. Then, hopefully, we will have the real bipartisan negotiations that should have started 6 or 7 months ago.

It is interesting to me that we are still having a misunderstanding about the basic facts. And the reason is, we have never had a legislative hearing in either the Ways and Means Committee or the Energy and Commerce Committee. We have not had a subcommittee markup in either of the jurisdictional committees. And we really didn't have a markup at full committee, because the original bill for SCHIP was a 500-page mammoth bill that we got at midnight the day before it was supposed to be marked up in the case of the Energy and Commerce Committee.

But once we do sustain the President's veto, we are going to have these negotiations I hope. And first we are going to talk about the kids. Both sides are talking about the kids. Well, here are the facts. Under current law, every child in America who is below 100 percent of poverty is covered by Medicaid. Both parties support that. Under current law, every child in America who lives in a family between 100 and 200 percent of poverty is covered by SCHIP if they will sign up. Now, there are some children and families that won't sign up. In Dallas, Texas, I am told that only 33 percent of the eligible SCHIP children are actually in an SCHIP program. That is a travesty. We ought to do something together to reach out to those children and those families to make sure that they either have SCHIP coverage or private insurance, that they have something. We can work together on that on a bipartisan basis.

Now, once you get above 200 percent of poverty, we have a difference of opinion. The original House bill said go to 400 percent of poverty. That bill is dead. The bill before us goes to 300 percent. It is a legitimate policy argument: If you want to go above and expand the program, how much do you expand it above 200 percent? Do you go to 300 percent? Do you go to 250 percent? The Republican alternative is, let's cover the lowest income kids first. Once we get 90 percent of those kids covered below 200 percent of poverty, let's let States go to 250 percent. That is the Barton-Deal alternative that we have the discharge petition on. But that is a legitimate policy argument.

Now, let's talk about illegal aliens. Under current law, you are not supposed to cover a child of an illegal alien. But they are covered because there is no verification enforcement system. In the pending bill, they have section 605 that says no benefit shall go to children of illegal aliens. But that is

all it says. There is no enforcement mechanism. There is no enforcement mechanism. That is something we can work on in the conference. That is something we can work on together to really put some enforcement to make sure that SCHIP benefits are for citizens and legal residents. We can work on that.

Let's vote to sustain the President's veto, and then let's work together to get a program that really is for the kids, not for adults, that really is for citizens, and that we can afford.

Well, Madam Speaker, there they go again. Once again, we are being forced by the Democratic Leadership of the House to vote on a bill that exists almost exclusively to help Democrats score political points against the President.

We're going to sustain the President's veto today, and we're going to do it because the President did the right thing by vetoing this poorly written expansion of federalized health care that leaves the poorest kids behind. Anybody who cares about needy children can vote against this bad bill proudly.

I'm both proud and concerned that Republicans had no part in writing this legislation. Proud because this bill is an embarrassment. Concerned because we're all supposed to be legislating on behalf of children, and as everybody knows, no Republican Member of this House was even asked for an opinion, much less invited to participate in writing the Democratic SCHIP bill.

I don't even think the Democrats who wrote it understand what they've done. I challenge the supporters of this bill to look people in the eye and say that they understand all of the provisions that are actually in this bill. Because I have some questions for you.

Madam Speaker, it would be a compliment to say that the so-called process which produced this bill is an abuse of our democratic system of Government. It was so much worse than garden-variety abuse. It was pathetic. Yet, I'm sure that some will show up here with a handful of talking points from your Democratic staffers who actually constructed this legislation, and you will explain to us that it is not an abomination at all, but a wondrous triumph of bipartisanship.

Give me the name of one Republican in the entire House of Representatives who directly participated in these discussions. Name just one.

I know that the authors of this bill certainly did not consult with either Mr. Deal or myself, I know that they have not included any Members of the Republican Leadership in the House; and I'm not aware of a single Republican Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee or the Ways and Means Committee being invited to participate in this process.

And although we were excluded from the negotiations and the Democratic Leadership has repeatedly refused to hold a legislative hearing on this bill, we have learned a few facts from the official projections produced by the Congressional Budget Office, and from what I've read, this bill isn't something that I could ever support.

For example, we know that the vast majority of the people added to the SCHIP program under the Democrats' bill will either already have private health insurance or they live in families with incomes too high to be eligible for SCHIP coverage today.

In fact, the Congressional Budget Office projects that H.R. 976 will lead to over 1.2 million new enrollees will be added to SCHIP as a result of an ``expansion of SCHIP and Medicaid eligibility to new populations.'' This means that these 1.2 million children live in families whose incomes are too high to qualify for the current SCHIP program. On the other hand, CBO projects that only 800,000 currently SCHIP eligible kids will be enrolled as a result of H.R. 976. This means that 50 percent more higher-income kids will be enrolled than currently SCHIP eligible kids.

And who will be paying for this expansion of SCHIP eligibility to higher-income families? Well, according to the Congressional Research Service, the vast majority of the $70 billion in additional tobacco tax revenues will come from low-income families. In fact, the Congressional Research Service said that tobacco taxes are ``the most regressive of the federal taxes.''

So, with H.R. 976, the Democrats really are taxing the poor in order to give to the rich.

In their defense, I guess it is difficult for the Democratic Leadership to know exactly what is in their own bill since it has neither been subject to a single legislative hearing nor conferenced by the House and the Senate.

Madam Speaker, I wonder if someone can explain to me why the Democratic Leadership decided to wait until just days before SCHIP expires to bring their reauthorization to the House floor. We have known for well over 10 years that the current SCHIP authorization would expire on September 30, 2007, and the Democratic Leadership in the House and the Senate have known since early November of 2006 that they would be in charge of actually producing a bill to reauthorize this vital health care program for low-income, uninsured children. Yet, here they were, a full 10 months later, jamming a bill through the House with fewer than three legislative days before the entire program expires and children's health care stops.

Well, Madam Speaker, I was not sent here by the 6th District of Texas to be quiet and do what the gentle lady from San Francisco instructs me to do. I was sent here to represent my constituents' best interests and I demand the ability to do what I have sworn to do.

We all know that the President promised to veto this version of the bill, so why did we waste precious time on a bill that we all know didn't stand a chance of ever becoming law?

While we are down here on the floor participating in this Theatre of the Absurd, the Democratic Leadership is in the back rooms trying to figure how they will extend the SCHIP program for another 6 months or a year. We all know this to be a fact, but I guess the Democrats want to pick a fight with the president so they can pretend that he is against children, and only then will they permit everybody to do the right thing and extend SCHIP.

Madam Speaker, I'm sorry it's come to this. The pettiness of this transparent political strategy to damage and weaken the president is a new low.

I'd hoped that we would not engage in this game, and it's still not too late to stop it. We could start debating how to best extend the SCHIP program so that we can actually do the job people sent us here to do. We still have a chance to write a responsible, long-term reauthorization of the SCHIP program. Now, it's true that writing a solid, bipartisan bill will not give the Democrats the ``political victory'' that they are hoping for, but that's the price that Democrats will have to pay. Given that millions of needy children are depending on us, it doesn't seem like a big price.

I am ready to start today to sit down with the Majority and reach a compromise bill so we can reauthorize this program expeditiously. Short 6-week extensions are irresponsible. We can and should come up with a compromise that can be signed into law and that ensures that low income children continue to have access to the SCHIP program. We should not drag this political process out any longer than today. Let us dispense with politics and commence with legislating.

Here's a way that will get me to call the President and urge him to sign up fast.

Require that States find and enroll 90 percent of the kids under 200 percent of the Federal Poverty Level before they go looking for more people with higher incomes.

States should be free to spend their own money, of course, but Federal taxpayers in 49 States shouldn't be made to subsidize the health care premiums for one State making $80,000 a year.

No adults except pregnant women, please. No more childless couples and, beginning in 2009, and Medicaid-eligible adults should move to Medicaid.

Let's preserve the requirement that States document the citizenship and identity of Medicaid applicants. Just writing down a Social Security number doesn't make you a citizen.

A bipartisan effort could pass this bill in a week, and doing so would make sense to poor kids, their families and nearly everybody outside the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

Madam Speaker, I ask that the gentleman's words be taken down.

Madam Speaker, I want to yield our last minute to the distinguished minority leader from the State of the current number one college football team in the country, Ohio State, Mr. Boehner of Ohio.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that of the 30 minutes yielded me, 15 minutes of that be yielded to the ranking member of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. McCrery.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 3 minutes.

Madam Speaker, there is politics being played in this body this afternoon, but it's not by the President of the United States.

When the SCHIP bill was up for reauthorization back in early September, people like myself asked that we have a regular process, have some time to review the bill, have some markups, learn what was in it, since we had gotten it the night before about midnight.

I yield to the gentleman from Maryland.

At that time, we were told that we didn't have time for that, that we had to move that bill before September 30 so that the children of America wouldn't lose their health insurance. Well, that bill, the CHAMP Act, passed this body. It never was brought up in the other body. Thankfully, it is gone. So you would think that with the continuing resolution that passed last week, we would now have some time to look at the SCHIP issue on a bipartisan basis here in the House and come up with a compromise that could be passed and signed by the President before the continuing resolution expires on, I think, November 16.

What we are being told today is that since the President vetoed the bill, we don't want to vote on the veto today, we want to postpone it, I believe, until October 18. Now, why is that? If it was such a rush last month, you would think that it would still be a rush now and they would want to get the veto out of the way and then work together to come up with a bill that the President would sign. So it would seem to me that the Democrats are saying, Well, let's have a 2-week period here to try to play politics with this.

I think that is wrong. I checked with the Parliamentarian about when was the last time a motion to postpone a veto was authorized by the House. It is not done very often. The last time was 1996. So I would hope we would defeat this motion to postpone and let me offer a substitute motion to refer the veto to the committee of jurisdiction. We then could have a process, have a bipartisan compromise, and bring it up within 2 weeks and vote for it, send it

to the other body and send it to the President, and I bet he would sign it. That is what we should be doing, not voting to postpone a veto vote which we know when that veto vote comes, we will sustain the President's veto.

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

Before I yield to Mr. Deal, I want to ask the distinguished subcommittee chairman a question if I could, and I will do it on my time.

Why are we postponing for 2 weeks?

Madam Speaker, reclaiming my time, we are not postponing for any substantive reason; we are just postponing for political reasons.

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

Madam Speaker, if the gentleman will yield, my 2-year-old hasn't needed a time-out yet.

Madam Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the distinguished subcommittee ranking member from Georgia (Mr. Deal).

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

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.

One of the speakers on the majority side several speakers ago from the great State of Wisconsin was talking about the children. In his home State, they cover 110,000 adults and only 56,000 children under

Madam Speaker, I yield myself 15 seconds.

Our speaker talked about Texas's rank in terms of SCHIP. In the first year that SCHIP was in law, Texas is a biennial State in terms of its legislature so we weren't able to get the program up and running. But in the second biennium, we did get it up and running under then- Governor Bush's leadership. Texas now ranks third in terms of the number of absolute children, and I would say in the top five in terms of percentage of eligible children, under SCHIP.

Madam Speaker, I'm the last speaker, so I reserve my time.

Madam Speaker, I am prepared to close when it is time to close.

Madam Speaker, I have had an additional speaker show up, so if it would be appropriate, I would yield 1 minute to Mr. Kingston of Georgia.

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

Madam Speaker and distinguished Members of the House of Representatives, I have in my hand a letter dated September 27 from myself and the majority of the Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee asking Speaker Pelosi to refer the SCHIP bill to the Energy and Commerce Committee so that we truly could have a bipartisan compromise.

If we could defeat this motion to postpone the veto, we could then move to a motion to refer the bill to the committee and honor the letter that I have sent to our distinguished Speaker.

We are going to sustain the President's veto whenever that vote occurs. In the history of the Republic, there have been over 2,000 vetoes of bills. Only 106 of those vetoes have been overridden. This will not be 107.

We will sustain the veto when that vote occurs and then hopefully we will begin the bipartisan process that should have begun back in January when the new majority took over.

When that day comes, the debate is not going to be about whether there should be a SCHIP program. There should be. The debate is not going to be whether we should cover low-income children. We already do that under Medicaid. The debate is not going to be whether we should cover children between 100 and 200 percent of poverty. We already do that.

The debate is going to be, should we cover adults? Most Republicans say no, we should not cover adults. The debate is going to be about illegal residents of our country. Should we cover illegal residents? Most Republicans are going to say no. I am not sure what our friends on the majority side are going to say. They may say no, they may say yes, they may say both. We are going to have that debate.

There are 78 million children in America. As far as we can tell, when you compare the numbers between the majority side and the minority side and the President's numbers, we are really having the debate about between 1.2 million and 800,000 children in America today that for some reason are not covered, and they fall within the income eligibility levels that we all tend to agree on, which is at least up to 200 percent, maybe 250 percent of poverty.

So we will focus the debate at some point in time, and at that point in time, we will have a bipartisan compromise. The President wants to reauthorize SCHIP. The Republicans want to reauthorize SCHIP. We just don't want to cover high-income Americans, we don't want to cover illegal residents, and we, the Republicans, don't want to cover adults.

Let's vote not to postpone the veto. Let's have the veto today and then begin the process that should have begun back in January of this year.

House of Representatives,

Committee on Energy and Commerce,

Washington, DC, September 27, 2007.

Hon. Nancy Pelosi,

Speaker of the House, House of Representatives, The Capitol,

Washington, DC.

Dear Madam Speaker: Circumstances have combined to present

the House with an unusual opportunity to restore a part of

the usual process by which legislation, major and minor, is

produced by the House in normal times.

As you know, legislation reauthorizing the State Children's

Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) was approved on Tuesday

night by a margin that plainly implies our House will sustain

the anticipated veto. As you also know, that legislation was

the product of decisions which largely ignored the regular

and established legislative process. In our committee, we had

a single general hearing on children's health. There was no

legislative hearing on the House SCHIP bill, and no markup by

our Health Subcommittee. The full committee markup was

restricted to reading the legislation because the 500-page

bill had only been revealed to most of us at 20 minutes to

midnight on July 24, just 10 hours before the markup was

scheduled to open. Then on the House floor, amendments were

barred.

Strategic errors by the majority generated House and Senate

bills so distinctly different that a conference committee to

work out the differences was deemed impossible. Thus the

House was required to consider a take-it-or-leave-it

patchwork of private agreements in lieu of a normal

conference report. As you know, House Republicans were denied

access to any part of the negotiations. That solution was

said to be ``creative'' by a prominent member of your party.

We opposed the SCHIP bill that came to us on Tuesday, and

not only because of the terrifically flawed process; you

supported it, and we think largely because you are proud of

the bill's content. Yet we gather from your remarks that you

and many other Democrats also believe the makeshift bill we

passed Tuesday night is hardly perfect, and could be improved

dramatically.

It seems to us that until November 16, when the temporary

extension of SCHIP under the continuing resolution expires,

we have a second chance to get both the process and the

policy right.

All Republicans have ever wanted was a fair opportunity to

understand, debate and affect the legislation in a positive

way. During the crafting and passage of both the CHAMP Act

and the House-Senate package of amendments, none of these

possibilities were available to Republicans or, for that

matter, to most Democrats. That failing can be revisited and

remedied if you are willing to respond to the inevitable

requirement for an SCHIP extension by conducting a normal

legislative hearing and a traditional markup.

Given a common-sense opportunity to actually read and

comprehend a bill reauthorizing SCHIP--surely a handful of

days could be permitted and please, this time without a

midnight document delivery--our strong preference would be to

stand and debate, then let the votes decide the outcome. All

you need do is convene the relevant committees between now

and November 16 to do the work they were designed to do.

Second chances on legislation always seem possible, but

never seem practical. We're about to have a practical second

chance to do it right. While Democrats control a majority of

the votes, no Democrat we know claims to have a monopoly on

good ideas.

Madam Speaker, SCHIP should never have become the intensely

partisan issue that it did become. A time will come, however,

when no more political advantage can be wrung from it. We

think that time is nearly upon us, and we should use it to

achieve a bipartisan bill through a cooperative effort.

Still, Democrats and Republicans do have different views and

if our principles cannot be reconciled through good-faith

bipartisanship, an honest airing of facts accompanied by

actual amendments and real votes cannot help but produce a

better bill than the one we passed on Tuesday night. Whether

intended to produce bipartisan agreement or a clash of

values, a legislative hearing would lay the groundwork for a

formal markup. Such a process can occur if the

chairmen of the Energy and Commerce and the Ways and Means

committees can be prevailed on to take the requisite steps,

and only you can accomplish that task.

We hope you can find a way to agree that good process will

produce better legislation, and that you will instruct the

committees to conduct public hearings followed by fair, open

markups of the SCHIP extension that will be required.

Sincerely,

Joe Barton, Ranking Member, Committee on Energy and

Commerce; Nathan Deal, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on

Health; Ralph Hall, Committee on Energy and Commerce;

Ed Whitfield, Committee on Energy and Commerce; John

Shadegg, Committee on Energy and Commerce; Steve Buyer,

Committee on Energy and Commerce; Joe Pitts, Committee

on Energy and Commerce; Lee Terry, Committee on Energy

and Commerce; J. Dennis Hastert, Committee on Energy

and Commerce.

John Shimkus, Committee on Energy and Commerce; Chip

Pickering, Committee on Energy and Commerce; George

Radanovich, Committee on Energy and Commerce; Greg

Walden, Committee on Energy and Commerce; Mike Rogers,

Committee on Energy and Commerce; Sue Myrick, Committee

on Energy and Commerce; Michael Burgess, Committee on

Energy and Commerce; John Sullivan, Committee on Energy

and Commerce; Marsha Blackburn, Committee on Energy and

Commerce.

Madam Speaker, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Speaker, on Thursday, September 27, 2007, I was unable to make the first vote in a series because I was at the White House for a bill signing of the Food and Drug Administration Amendment Act of 2007. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea'' on motion to adjourn which failed by the Yeas and Nays: 175-229 (Roll No. 914).

Stated against:

The answer is no. I was allowed to testify at the Rules Committee last evening. That's the only formal opportunity I was ever given in the last 9 months on this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I am going to speak extemporaneously since my prepared remarks are in the Record. I remind the body that the Democratic majority took over the House and the Senate in January of this year. They set the schedule. They set the agenda. They decide what hearings are held. They decide what bills are marked up. They decide which issues come to the floor of both bodies. Not the Republicans.

It is insulting to sit here and be told that somehow when the same party, of which I am not a member, controls the agenda in both legislative bodies of this great Congress that somehow the Republicans are responsible for this late effort to reauthorize SCHIP.

I told the distinguished chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee the day after the election last November, Mr. Dingell of Michigan, that I was looking forward to working with him on SCHIP reauthorization, and while I don't know it as a fact, I am fairly certain that Mr. McCrery had a similar conversation with the distinguished chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, Mr. Rangel of New York.

Now, how much bipartisan cooperation have we had in the House of Representatives? The answer is almost none. It is my understanding that Mr. Rangel and Mr. McCrery did talk some in their committee, but in the Energy and Commerce Committee we held a number of generic hearings. We never held a hearing specifically on SCHIP. We never held a legislative markup in subcommittee. We never held a legislative hearing or markup in full committee. We got a 565-page bill the night before the scheduled markup, and it was take it or leave it. Well, we left it. And that bill passed the House, but barely.

What has happened since that bill passed? There have been discussions in the Senate between the Republicans and the Democrats apparently, and the House Democratic leadership have participated. But the House Republicans have not been allowed to participate. So what is the result of that? The result of that is a 300-page bill that the House Republicans saw at about 6:14 last evening and a Rules Committee in which it was voted to not give a Republican substitute, not give a Republican amendment, not even give a Republican motion to recommit.

So we are going to have twice now a major bill in which there is bipartisan support for is going to come to the House of Representatives with no Republican input, not even a motion to recommit.

Now, I don't know how many times the Republicans did that to the Democrats in the last several Congresses when we were in the majority, but I bet I could count them on the fingers of one hand, and I might be able to count them on the fingers of one finger.

Don't you think the American people deserve at least a substitute or a motion to recommit? Now, we are going to be given a chance later this evening to have 1 hour of debate, 1 hour of debate, and then an up-or- down vote, and we are going to get enough votes to sustain the President's veto, and maybe next week Mr. Dingell and Mr. Rangel and Ms. Pelosi will contact Mr. Boehner, Mr. Barton, and Mr. McCrery, and we may yet get this bipartisan agreement. We may get it next week, and I hope we do. But I don't want the American people to be under any illusion. The bill that's coming before the floor tonight is a backroom deal that the most that can be said for it is that it does have money in it for the children of America, which we support. And there are lots of reforms that we probably support, too, if we are ever given the chance to have that discussion.

I would hope we would vote ``no'' on this rule, take it back to the Rules Committee, at least make a substitute or a motion to recommit in order, and put back in the rule in terms of earmarks. There are at least two earmarks that we know in the bill that nobody has talked about.

One of the earmarks is from the great State of Michigan, $1.2 billion over 10 years. It's just a gift of $1.2 billion for their FMAP program. And if that's not an earmark, I don't know what is. And under the Democratic leadership's own rule in this Congress, that should have at least been disclosed. And last night at the Rules Committee, they said there were no earmarks in the bill. And I believe when Ms. Slaughter, the distinguished chairman, said that, she believed it. I don't think she knew it was in the bill. But it is. That at least ought to be corrected.

Vote ``no'' on the rule and send it back to the committee.

Mr. Speaker, this rule is an apt reflection of the underlying SCRIP legislation. Like the bill, it tramples democracy in a feckless commitment to bad politics over good policy. The House Democratic leadership wants to embarrass and weaken the President, and that goal is more important to them than extending health care to needy children.

So we're being instructed--not even asked--to swallow a multi- billion-dollar bill without having a legislative hearing at any level, without having a subcommittee markup and without having a conference. We're each supposed to analyze and comprehend a 299-page enigma that was unveiled last night. There'll be no amendments, of course, and no motion to recommit. This is getting to be a bad habit, isn't it?

Each of us represents several hundred thousand people, and most of them come from families that work hard and pay taxes. They do their part, and we should, too. But we can't do much more than voting object when we are not even able to know what's in the bills we're voting on.

Most of what we know about this SCHIP bill is what we hear in the halls and see in the newspapers. For some, that's enough because the harder we listen and the more we look, the more we discover that is troubling. What on earth is the $1.2 billion earmark for Michigan all about, anyway? And how many more like it are tucked away in this bill?

We cannot actually know most of what's in this bill, but we can suspect much. We can certainly suspect the State Children's Health Insurance Program grew from a fraction of the House SCHIP bill to become an entire pretend conference report. All we know for sure is that we're being asked to pass another major

piece of legislation based on blind faith and guesswork.

I wonder why we can't do now what we're surely going to do later-- pass a simple extension of the SCRIP program and then have the honest public debate about policy changes that should have occurred over the last 10 months. Mr. Deal and I propose to extend the authorization of SCRIP for an additional 18 months, and more than a hundred of our colleagues have agreed. There are no gimmicks, no budget trickery, no politics and no changes.

But the majority will want their pound of the President's flesh first. Everybody gets that, and maybe it won't work so well as they hope because, after all, everybody gets it. This rule and this legislation aren't about children or health. They are about a cynical exercise of raw power for the sake of a fleeting political advantage.

I wish the Democrats wouldn't do it this way, but I'm under no illusion that wishin' or hopin' will change the speaker's mind. I look forward to the President's inevitable veto because it will give us a chance to have a real discussion and write a transparent bill instead of foisting this mystery package on the taxpayers and the needy children of America.

We can work together and do this right, and I believe that eventually, we will. The best first step would be to reject this pathetic rule and start working on real legislation now instead of later.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to recognize a member of the committee, the gentleman from Arizona (Mr. Shadegg), for 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, I would yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, we have spent most of today actually trying to read the bill. I have the bill in front of me. In this 2-minute period, I want to discuss section 605 of the bill. Section 605 of the bill has the title: ``No Federal funding for illegal aliens.'' It is a very brief section, two lines: ``Nothing in this act allows Federal payment for individuals who are not legal residents.'' That is it.

So the title of section 605 would have you believe there's going to be no Federal funding for illegal aliens. When you specifically read the section, it just says nothing in the act allows payment. It doesn't prohibit it.

Now, if the authors of section 605 really don't want illegal aliens to receive funding under this bill, this section ought to read something like this: ``This act prohibits Federal payments for individuals who are not legal residents or citizens.''

Mr. Speaker, I would ask unanimous consent to substitute the language that I just read: ``This act prohibits Federal payments for individuals who are not legal residents or citizens.''

Mr. Speaker, my unanimous consent request is to substitute for what is in the bill: ``Nothing in this act allows Federal payment for individuals who are not legal residents,'' that is in the bill, I ask unanimous consent to substitute: ``This act prohibits Federal payments for individuals who are not legal residents or citizens.''

The gentleman from Michigan has objected, and I respect that objection. But what that means is that they want illegal residents of the United States of America to get these benefits. That is what the objection means. So for that reason alone, I would ask that we vote against this bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I want to acknowledge my good friend, Mr. Rangel, the distinguished chairman of the Ways and Means Committee. I now know who the problem is; it is those big, bad bully Republicans in the Senate. I didn't realize that.

It is my time.

Now that I know what the problem is, I am going to call over there. They are good friends of mine, Mr. Hatch and Mr. Grassley. And tell them that now that we have identified the problem, will they accept the language that Mr. Dingell objected to, and when we are here next week on the House floor when this bill is vetoed by the President, I would expect my good friend from New York to accept that change in the language.

I know we can. I think my time has expired, but I just want to commend him because now I know where the problem is. It is those big bad bully Republicans and these two wily negotiators, Mr. Rangel and Mr. Dingell, who are two of the most distinguished, able legislators in the history of the Congress, have been buffaloed by a couple of scallywags over in the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Georgia (Mr. Kingston).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 2 minutes.

Mr. Speaker, since we have not had a markup and since we have not had a legislative hearing, and I know it is cumbersome to actually refer to specific sections of the bill on the floor, especially of what is portrayed to be a conference report, which this is not, which is not amendable, but I want to go back and talk about this eligibility.

There is a section in the bill, section 203: ``State option to rely on findings from an express lane agency to conduct simplified eligibility determinations.'' On the face of it, that would seem to be a good thing. This section is very complicated. It is 10 to 15 pages long.

But it does say in this section that a parent of a child that might be eligible can self-verify. If you are approached by one of these express lane agencies, it is up to the parent of the child to self- determine, to self-certify that they are indeed eligible. That would appear to be something that we need to work on.

Then it goes on when it defines the actual express lane agencies on page 123 of the bill, in subparagraph (F), it goes through and lists the kind of public agencies that are express lane agencies. They apparently include Medicare part D, Medicaid, Food Stamp Act, Head Start Act, National School Lunch Act, Child Nutrition Act, Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, United States Housing Act, Native American Housing Assistance Act, and so on and so on.

Again on the face of it, those are all agencies that might be of some assistance, but I doubt that their requirements are the same as the requirements for the base bill for SCHIP in

terms of income eligibility and age determination. For example, I doubt that the Stewart B. McKinney Homeless Assistance Act has an age requirement at all.

So again, when the President vetoes this bill and we are back working together on a bipartisan basis, these are the kinds of things I hope to clarify and tighten up.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to a distinguished Member from Texas (Mr. Hensarling).

Mr. Speaker, I also only have one speaker, that's myself, to close. What is the order of closure?

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire as to how much time I have.

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

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

And since I really have a real minute and a half, I'm going to try to go through this as quickly as possible.

Republicans want to reauthorize the SCHIP program. We do want to refocus it on the original intent of the program, which was near-low- income children in families between 100 and 200 percent of poverty. We understand that

in the 10 years of the program's existence that waivers have been given and there are some States that cover up to 350 percent of poverty, and some States cover adults.

But as our distinguished Speaker just said, Republicans are for the children, and we want to focus the SCHIP funds on those children and those families that don't have private insurance and aren't covered by Medicaid; and we believe that that is children in families somewhere between 100 percent of poverty and 200 percent of poverty.

And when the President rightfully vetoes this bill, and when the House of Representatives rightfully sustains the President's veto, it is my hope that we will get with the other body and the Democratic leadership at the leadership level and Chairman Dingell and Chairman Rangel, and we will work out a bipartisan compromise that does cover the health care needs of the needy children of America that currently, in spite of our best efforts, do not have the health insurance and the health coverage that they need.

To make that possible, we have to defeat this bill, or at least get enough votes to sustain the President's veto of this bill, and then work together in the near future to do some of the things that we have talked about on the floor this evening.

Vote ``no'' on the SCHIP bill this evening.

Mr. Speaker, here we are again.

Once again, we are being forced by the Democratic Leadership of the House to vote on a bill of vital importance to millions of our constituents without the ability to actually analyze its contents.

Once again, Mr. Speaker, we are being forced by the Democratic Leadership to vote less than 24 hours after they introduced a bill that is hundreds of pages long and spends hundreds of billions of the taxpayers' dollars.

Once again, Mr. Speaker, we are being forced to vote on a bill that was concocted in secret and unveiled in the middle of the night.

When this sort of thing happens, everybody wonders what the Majority is trying to hide, and why they need to hide anything.

I truly hope that the Democratic Leadership does not expect me to vote in favor of a 299-page bill that Republicans saw for the first time at 6:36 p.m. yesterday evening. I believe in faith, but not in blind faith.

I challenge the supporters of this bill to come to the floor of this House, look people in the eye, and say that they understand all of the provisions that are actually in this bill. Because I have some questions for you.

Mr. Speaker, it would be a compliment to say that the so-called process which produced this bill is an abuse of our democratic system of government. It was so much worse than garden-variety abuse. It was a travesty and an abomination, and it was pathetic. Yet, I'm sure that some will show up here with a handful of talking points from the staff who actually wrote this legislation, and explain to us that it is not a pathetic abomination, but a wondrous triumph of bipartisanship.

I challenge any Member that would claim that this bill is bipartisan to give me the name of one Republican in the entire House of Representatives who directly participated in these discussions. Name just one.

I know that the authors of this bill certainly did not consult with either Mr. Deal or myself; I know that they have not included any Members of the Republican Leadership in the House; and I'm not aware of a single Republican Member of the Energy and Commerce Committee or the Ways and Means Committee being invited to participate in this process.

Now we have not had time to analyze this product that the Democrats are going to bring to the floor today but the Congressional Budget Office has. Yesterday at the Rules Committee, it was stated that this bill would put 4.4 million new people on to SCHIP. However, according to the CBO close to a million of those children were already enrolled in Medicaid and over 1.5 million of those newly enrolled in SCHIP were already enrolled in private coverage.

It was also stated last night at the Rules Committee that this bill does not expand eligibility under SCHIP. If that is the case then why does the CBO estimate 1.2 million of the newly enrolled people in SCHIP come from expanding the populations that are eligible for the program? Now those comments last night could have been misstatements because people just really do not know what is in this bill. It is difficult to know what is in a bill that no one has seen.

Mr. Speaker, I wonder if someone can explain to me why the Democratic Leadership has decided to wait until just days before SCHIP expires to bring their reauthorization to the House floor. We have known for well over 10 years that the current SCHIP authorization would expire on September 30, 2007, and the Democratic Leadership in the House and the Senate have known since early November that they would be in charge of actually producing a bill to reauthorize this vital health care program for low-income, uninsured children. Yet, here they are, a full 10 months later, jamming a bill through the House with fewer than three legislative days before the entire program expires and children's health care stops.

Well, Mr. Speaker, I was not sent here by the 6th District of Texas to be quiet and do what the gentle lady from San Francisco instructs me to do. I was sent here to represent my constituents' best interests and I demand the ability to do what I have sworn to do.

We all know that the President has promised to veto this version of the bill, so why are we wasting precious time on a bill that we all know doesn't stand a chance of ever becoming law?

While we are down here on the floor participating in this Theatre of the Absurd, the

Democratic Leadership is in the back rooms trying to figure how they will extend the SCHIP program for another 6 months or a year. We all know this to be a fact, but I guess the Democrats want to pick a fight with the president so they can pretend that he is against children, and only then will they permit everybody to do the right thing and extend

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, most of us are too young to remember, but in the early days of the movies there was a series of movies based on the ``Perils of Pauline.'' Pauline was a heroine who always got tied to the railroad track, and just as the train was bearing down on her the hero would come out and rescue her for another adventure in the next movie reel.

Well, this bill before us has kind of experienced the Perils of Pauline. It started out in a tremendous positive bipartisan spirit here in the House. Chairman Dingell and Subcommittee Chairman Pallone on the majority and Mr. Deal and myself on the minority side and our colleagues in the rank-and-file worked together. We reported a bill, and I don't remember how many votes it got on the House floor, but I believe it was over 400. It got over to the other body, and they modified it in some ways that were somewhat different than the House bill. The negotiations broke down, and it looked for a while this week that the Food and Drug Administration was going to have to send out reduction in force notices to over 2,000 employees at the Food and Drug Administration. But thanks to the tremendous leadership of Chairman Dingell and Subcommittee Chairman Pallone and the help of people like Congressman Waxman and others on the majority side, we've been able to come back together and create a unified House position and work with our friends in the other body. And they've accepted the compromise that's before us to say that here, at 3 o'clock on Wednesday afternoon, we're going to rescue Pauline and pass the PDUFA, I hope by unanimous consent on the suspension calendar, the PDUFA reauthorization bill, and lots of good things are going to happen.

I am honored to be the ranking member on the Energy and Commerce Committee, along with Subcommittee

Ranking Member Deal, who has worked with the majority to put this compromise together.

I want to stress the sensitivity of completing the reauthorization of the Prescription Drug User Fee Program and the Medical Device User Fee Program right now. As I said earlier, if we were not to have done that by the end of this week, over 2,000 employees at the FDA would probably have received a reduction in force notice sometime next week or the week after. These are dedicated experts who are responsible for reviewing and approving new drugs, biologics and medical devices. If we were to lose those individuals, we would probably never get them back. That would have severe negative repercussions for everybody in this country.

The legislation before us will promote advancement in pediatric therapies both for pharmaceuticals and for medical devices. The Pediatric Rule and the Best Pharmaceuticals for Children Act have helped to fill a void in pediatric medicine. Prior to these acts, many children were not getting the best treatment because the information was simply not available to determine how a drug would act on them. Drugs do perform differently in different patients, which is especially true when that patient is a child. These acts have begun to provide physicians the information they need to make the best decisions for their pediatric patients. These two acts work together to ensure that accurate, timely pediatric use information is developed to ensure the best medical outcomes for the Nation's children.

The bill preserves the 6-month incentive that companies receive to do additional testing in pediatric populations. I want to emphasize that. The bill before us preserves the 6-month pediatric exclusivity provision in current law, and I think that's a real accomplishment. Chairman Dingell should be commended for his leadership on that effort. I was glad to support him in that insistence on that particular provision. I would also like to thank Congresswoman Anna Eshoo for her work on that provision.

Finally, the legislation addresses the issue of drug safety. No drug is completely safe. All drugs have some risk. The goal of the Food and Drug Administration is to ensure that the benefits of the drug outweigh any potential risks and ensure that patients have access to life-saving and life-improving medications.

The legislation before us today strives to ensure that the FDA has the authority to monitor drugs to ensure that the balance between the benefit and the risk remains in equilibrium. The FDA will now have the authority to require that drug sponsors conduct postmarket clinical trials. The FDA will now have the authority to require that a drug make a label change. The FDA will also now have the authority to impose additional requirements on a drug in the form of a risk evaluation and mitigation strategy when it is needed to ensure that a drug's benefits outweigh its risk.

Mr. Speaker, this bill is a bipartisan compromise that does strengthen the FDA, it will improve children's health, and it will reauthorize programs that are essential to ensuring that patients have timely access to drugs and medical devices.

Before I reserve the balance of my time, I again want to thank Chairman Dingell, Subcommittee Chairman Pallone, Ranking Member Deal, and all the rank-and-file members. I also want to especially thank Ryan Long on the minority staff, the gentleman that is sitting to my left. He stayed up all last night working on these final nuances. I shouldn't say this, but I'm told that he has the same clothes on today that he had on yesterday because he has worked so hard on this bill. We do want to give him special commendation. And I would urge that he take the appropriate hygienic provisions as soon as possible.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would ask unanimous consent that the balance of the time on the minority side be yielded to Mr. Nathan Deal, the ranking member of the Health Subcommittee, for him to use and control as he sees fit.