Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, as chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, which has some jurisdiction on trade, I rise in strong support of the CAFTA agreement.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in strong support of H.R. 3045, the Dominican Republic-Central America-United States Free Trade Agreement Implementation Act (DR-CAFTA). This important Agreement ensures the spread of fair and open markets for American goods and services. I want to commend the Bush administration, the majority leader, and my good friends on the Committee on Ways and Means for bringing this important legislation before the House.

The provisions in DR-CAFTA go beyond the mere dissolution of tariffs. This wide-ranging Agreement sets forth detailed requirements to eliminate the non-tariff trade barriers erected by the member countries. Often more nefarious than traditional protectionist measures, these barriers now constitute the principle impediment to achieving free and unfettered foreign commerce.

The elimination of all trade barriers to foreign commerce has long been a goal of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. So I want to express my great satisfaction that DR-CAFTA contains numerous chapters resolving potential non- tariff trade barriers.

Chapter 6 addresses each country's ability to promulgate needed sanitary measures. It is very important that our countries cooperate closely, and assist one another in protecting human, animal, and plant health. Plant- and animal-borne pests and diseases, including toxins and disease-causing organisms, must be carefully controlled, and the reaffirmation of WTO rules in this area strengthens the Agreement in a significant way.

Chapter 13 and 14 focus on telecommunications and E-commerce. These are some of the most important pieces of the Agreement before us. They promote, instead of hamper, growth in these areas. Chapter 13 ensures non-discriminatory access to public telecommunications networks in the Member countries, and requires the signatories to regulate their dominant telecommunications suppliers in ways that will ensure a level playing field for new market entrants; deregulation and technological neutrality are the key goals. Costa Rica is of particular note because of its government-provided telecom services, and the Agreement has special requirements for this country to open its market to American competition. Additionally, Chapter 14 builds on these goals by prohibiting discriminatory regulation of electronic trade. This chapter represents a major advance over previous international arrangements with regard to E-commerce.

The protection of Intellectual Property, IP, rights must be a part of any Free Trade Agreement, FTA, and Chapter 15 complements and enhances existing international standards in this area. It requires the Parties to ratify or accede to several existing agreements on IP rights, including two significant World Intellectual Property Organization

agreements to which the U.S. is already a Party.

Chapter 17 sets out the Parties' commitments and undertakings regarding environmental protection. It draws on the North American Agreement on Environmental Cooperation and the environmental provisions of other recent U.S. FTAs, including those with Jordan, Chile, Singapore, Australia, and Morocco. DR-CAFTA goes further however, and notably is the first American FTA that includes a process for public submission on environmental enforcement matters. The Parties must ensure that their laws provide a high level of environmental protection, and no Party may strive to weaken these laws to promote trade with Another.

The Committee on Energy and Commerce has jurisdiction over the areas I have discussed--as well as jurisdiction over non-tariff trade barriers generally--and my Committee plans to continue to exercise its jurisdiction over trade barriers to further the expansion of free and open foreign commerce.

Finally--and aside from the actual text of the Agreement--this implementing legislation offers an opportunity to show the people of the developing countries of Central America and the people of the world that when we speak of freedom and liberty and the importance of self- rule, we mean every word of it. The still-struggling, but nascent democracies of the DR-CAFTA countries need political stability to continue to grow. Economic stability and growth are important parts of that goal. Passing this legislation will help to tie these countries' futures to our own, and to reinforce our own democratic principles.

Mr. Speaker, I would again like to commend all the parties that made this Agreement possible, and to once again urge my colleagues to support unimpeded trade with foreign nations and to help strengthen economic and political stability in our hemisphere through the adoption of DR-CAFTA.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take from the Speaker's table the bill (H.R. 6) to ensure jobs for our future with secure, affordable, and reliable energy, with a Senate amendment thereto, disagree to the Senate amendment, and agree to the conference asked by the Senate.

Mr. Speaker, I rise just to say that I object to the motion to instruct.

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

Mr. Speaker, how many speakers does the gentlewoman have?

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

Mr. Speaker, back in the middle of the Depression in the late 1920s or the early 1930s, the east Texas oil field was discovered, and at that time it was the world's largest oil field. And since it was discovered by a man named Joiner who was an independent, all kinds of folks rushed in to get a piece of that action.

It was not discovered by the major oil companies, and so literally tens of thousands of people from all over the country came to east Texas and to Kilgore and to Longview to try to make their fortune.

The law enforcement facilities and the personnel were just overwhelmed. So finally in desperation, one of the county judges called down to Austin to speak to the Governor of Texas. He said, Governor, we are being overwhelmed here. We have a riot on our hands. Can you send the Texas National Guard and the Texas Rangers? Could you send us some help so we can restore law and order? The Governor of Texas said, I will be happy to do that.

So about a day later, the sheriff and the county judge and some of the county commissioners, they went to the train station to meet the help. And they were expecting hundreds, if not thousands, of troops and Rangers to step off the train; and one lonely Texas Ranger, a grizzled old guy stepped off the train. The county judge says, I called the Governor and I asked for help, where is it? The Ranger said, You are looking at it. The county judge said, We got a riot on our hands. And the Ranger said, How many riots? And the judge said, One. The Ranger said, Well, I am one Ranger. One Ranger, one riot. And he proceeded to quell the disturbance.

Well, we have heard from our friends, and they are my friends, every one of them except for one that just spoke is a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. They are all good people. Not one of them voted for the energy bill. That is okay. That is what democracy is all about.

You have heard the other side of the story, but that may not be the whole story. There is another side to this story on MTBE, and let us talk about it.

Our distinguished minority leader, the gentlewoman from California (Ms. Pelosi), when she spoke, stood up and said that back when they began to put MTBE in the gasoline, the manufacturers knew that it would leak. They knew that it would leak.

Well, let me ask you a question. If you put something in a tank underground and the tank is not tight, is it going to leak or not leak? The answer is it is going to leak if you do not have a tank that is not leakproof. So to say they knew MTBE would leak is to say they knew there were leaking underground storage tanks.

You put gasoline in a storage tank underground, whatever is in that gasoline, if there is a leak in the tank, it is going to leak. That is a fact. So when MTBE leaks, which is a fact, it is not just the MTBE. It is everything else in the gasoline. It is the benzene and all the other additives and the gasoline itself.

Now, to say that the solution to that is to ban MTBE is to say if I cut my arm and it is bleeding, instead of putting a BandAid on it and stopping the leak, I drain the blood out of my body. That is one way to stop the leak. But that may not be the most cost-effective and the most sensible way.

Now, surprising as it may be, under existing law we have a leaking underground storage tank fund called the LUST fund. It was specifically set up in law to prevent tanks from leaking, to have a mechanism to pay to repair these underground storage tanks. Just one problem, the law did not say the money that goes into the fund has to be used just for leaking underground storage tanks.

So what have the States done? They have used it for every purpose but that. We set up this fund. We funded it. We put money into the trust fund. We send that money to the States, and the States use it for any purpose. Some States actually do use it to repair and maintain leaking underground storage tanks, but not many.

This bill that my friends who have just been speaking voted against has a provision in it that says the States have to use some of the money for the underground storage tanks. And, in fact, it doubles the amount and it sets up a maintenance program where the States have to go out and actually enforce the law in this bill that is pending. That is my first point.

The gentlewoman who is offering the amendment said, and she is right, there are 2,600 water systems in this country that have MTBE contamination. She says it and I am going to say it is a fact. I have no reason to doubt that.

What she does not say because the reports that she studies do not tell her is what the level is. Now, the EPA standard is somewhere between 20 and 40 parts per billion. Some States have a tighter standard, as low as 13 parts per billion. The problem is, with all of these lawsuits that have been filed, the trial lawyers have found out that you can detect MTBE down to one part per billion. Somebody shows up in your city council office and says, we have a lawsuit on MTBE contamination. Can we check your water supply? Of course they are going to say, sure, check the water supply.

They come back and say, you got MTBE contamination, 2 parts per billion. Oh, my God. Let us join up. Well, unless you have got the most sensitive nose, you are not even going to be able to smell it, but it is there. It is way below the standard.

Now, if the State wants to set a standard even lower than 13 parts per billion, I have got no problem with that. If the State wants to ban MTBE, which some States have, I have got no problem with that. But to sit here and say that you have all this contamination, well, I could take a thumbful of MTBE and take it out and throw it on the ground out here in the Capitol. And if it rains very quickly after that, the thumbful gets into the water system, the wastewater run-off here in Washington, D.C., and some of that goes to

a reservoir and the city of Washington gets some of its drinking water from that reservoir, it might show up at one part per billion.

That does not mean it is contaminated in the real sense, but it does mean there is some MTBE in there.

So the fact that we have all these water systems that claim contamination, part of that is because the trial lawyers have been going on and recruiting people to join the lawsuit, and they go out and study their water supply and they may actually be able to find a little MTBE in it.

The next thing, and my friend from Maine talked about the fact that MTBE was not mandated under the Clean Air Act Amendments of 1991. He is telling you the truth. But, again, as he pointed out, we did not mandate MTBE but we did mandate that you had to put an oxygenate requirement of 2 percent by weight. At that time, there were two ways to do it: One was ethanol and the other was MTBE.

Now, since that time, the oil and gas industry has come up with a product called reformulated gasoline that meets the minimum standard for combustion under the Clean Air Act Amendments, so there are now three ways to do it. But at the time there were two, and it was a mandate. So we told the industry, if you are in a nonattainment area, you have to put one of two things, MTBE or ethanol, in your gasoline during certain parts of the year so that you get better combustion in the engine so that you get cleaner air quality.

That was a good thing, not a bad thing. And what did they find out? They found out that those communities who used the MTBE, it was much more cost effective. It cost less money; and two, it cleaned the air better, about 40 percent better than ethanol, 40 percent. But, as has been pointed out, if you store it in a tank that leaks, it may leak. And when the gasoline leaks, the MTBE as part of the gasoline leaks and the MTBE does get into the water table and that does cause an odor.

Now, the last thing I want to talk about is this study that has been leaked. Is it not interesting we are having a debate about leaking underground storage tanks and a study has been leaked from the EPA? Heaven help us. This study that has been leaked is a draft study. It has not been peer reviewed. It will probably never become part of an actual public document that is presented to the Congress. But the folks at EPA understand the energy bill is about to go to conference, and those that agree that MTBE is not a good thing, somebody over there has conveniently leaked a draft report that says MTBE is now a likely carcinogen. Likely.

Well, I drink a lot of Diet Dr. Pepper. And my guess is if I were to drink ten gallons of Diet Dr. Pepper everyday for the rest of my life, I might develop cancer because of that. I do not think that MTBE, under the standard that is in current law, is a carcinogen, and all the studies that I have seen that have tried to prove it have come back just the opposite. So to hang our hat now on a draft study that has not been peer reviewed and has been leaked by the EPA, to me, is pretty weak soup indeed.

Let me just say that we are getting ready to go to conference with the other body. That is a good thing, not a bad thing on the energy bill. We need to find a compromise on MTBE. I think that is a good thing, not a bad thing. And I agree with some of the proponents of the Capps amendment that the manufacturers and the distributors and the retailers and the refiners, the people in the chain of custody for MTBE should help pay to clean up the water systems that are contaminated. Should. Should. So the compromise that we have been working on for several months now says that they have to do that.

We actually are going to set up a specific fund just for MTBE remediation, and that fund is going to be sufficiently funded to pay for the actual cleanup and remediation of contaminated sites. It is not going to pay for trial lawyers' contingency fees. Not going to do that. But if you are one of these water systems that has real contamination and you want it cleaned up, if this compromise becomes a part of the bill and the bill becomes law, you are going to get your water site cleaned up very quickly and you are not going to have any MTBE contamination in it.

If what you are really trying to do is enrich the pockets of the trial lawyers, when they talk about $85 billion or $30 billion or whatever the number is, most of that money is trial lawyer contingency fees. I am not in that game. I am about good government. I am about real cleanup. I am about a cleaner environment. And the bill that I hope to report back as a conference report, if I have anything to do with it, is going to have a compromise on MTBE that does exactly that.

The people that have helped cause the problem are going to help pay for it and help to clean it up. The communities that want clean water are going to get it quicker and sooner under the compromise that will be in our bill. I would think that the majority of the House, including 41 Democrats who voted for the energy bill when it went to the Senate, are going to continue to agree with me. And if that is the case, I hope they will vote against this Capps motion to instruct, as they already have done once at the end of the debate on the energy bill, and let us go to conference and find a real compromise to solve this problem.

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

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman for yielding me this time.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of this resolution, and I am proud to be one of the original cosponsors. I would like to point out a couple of problems with the proposed transaction.

Number one, if Unocal was trying to buy the Chinese National Offshore Oil Company, they could not do it, because Chinese law does not allow a foreign company to have a controlling interest in a company in China. That is one problem.

Number two, CNOOC is a front company for the Communist Chinese government. Seventy percent of the equity in the company is owned by the Communist Chinese government. The money that is going to be used to buy Unocal comes from the Communist government in the form of a loan. This loan almost doubles the total amount of debt; in fact, it over- doubles the total amount of debt that the company currently has.

Number three, if we wanted to sell our products in China, under current law, that probably would not be allowed. So I am in strong support of this resolution.

I chair the committee that has jurisdiction over the Committee on Foreign Investment of the United States, CFIUS, and I plan to hold a hearing on this when we get back sometime in the very near future, after the July Fourth recess. There is no reason that we cannot find a buyer for Unocal that meets all of the tests that a company in the United States would have to meet.

So I am in strong support of this resolution, and I hope all Members of the House of Representatives will support it.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of the President's proposal to reform our Social Security system. I also rise in support of the Members of the House of Representatives that have put forward a plan which would allow each individual in this country that is covered under Social Security to make a decision to have part of their payroll taxes invested in government securities, in U.S. Treasury bonds.

There are two differences between this proposal and the current law. Under current law, the surplus in the Social Security fund is invested aggregately in what are called Social Security Trust Bonds. Those are government bonds, except they are not marketable, and they are not in any individual's names.

The proposal that some Members of the House of Representatives propounded this week is to allow an individual to take parts of their individual payroll tax and invest it in a government security, a U.S. Treasury security in their name, which would be a marketable security.

I think this proposal is long overdue, and I rise first in strong support of the President's proposal to reform our Social Security program and in the proposal that the Members of the House have put forward.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the Committee on Energy and Commerce be discharged from further consideration of the Senate bill (S. 1282) to amend the Communications Satellite Act of 1962 to strike the privatization criteria for INTELSAT separated entities, remove certain restrictions on separated and successor entities to INTELSAT, and for other purposes, and ask for its immediate consideration in the House.

Mr. Speaker, the gentleman's understanding is correct. This TMA extension and any further extensions will be offset with savings in addition to those required by reconciliation.

I would note that the proper place to address a TMA extension beyond the next 3 months would be in the context of Medicaid reform as part of reconciliation. However, the committee that I chair reserves the right to include these offsets in other legislative vehicles, as necessary.

Mr. Chairman, I speak in rabid opposition to this amendment, not because I oppose the total intent of it, but because it is legislating on an appropriations bill. If it were to pass and remain in the bill, it would make the Committee on Energy and Commerce much more difficult on reconciliation.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in as strong as possible opposition to the Hinchey amendment. We have public television today, and I am very proud that we do. Public television used to say that they had a reason to exist, because if they did not exist, who would provide the public aspect of some of our television programming?

That was an effective argument 30 years ago, and to some extent it is still effective today. But whereas yesterday the PBS station in the local market was maybe the third or fourth station, today it may be one of dozens of stations, and if you count cable, it may be one of hundreds. So the argument for continuing to spend taxpayer money for public television is not quite as strong as it used to be.

Having said that, I think there is a role for public television in the marketplace. We are now led to believe, though, that for some reason, the current head of public television is trying to move public television, you know, to the right. I disagree with that.

In last year's Presidential debates, I am told that many, many viewers who watched not the debates but the campaigns, seemed to think that NPR was simply for the Bush-haters. In fact, I had a constituent come up to me and say, well, we have now heard from the Bush-haters after listening to an NPR news commentary.

Rightly or wrongly, a lot of people where I come from think that NPR represents the left. I know that is exactly the opposite of what my friend, the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey) thinks.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting allocates Federal funds for public radio and television. It is about 4 percent of the total funding that they receive, if my numbers are correct. I do not have a problem with this. I do not have a problem with Mr. Obey's amendment yesterday that restored funding to PBS.

Having said that, I think the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) and the full committee were right to reduce funding, because their committee's budget was short billions of dollars and they simply subjected the Corporation for Public Broadcasting to the same scrutiny that they subjected all of the other programs under their subcommittee's jurisdiction.

I commend the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula) for doing that. What we

really have here, in my opinion, is to some extent perhaps a personal vendetta against the current head of CPB, a gentleman named Mr. Tomlinson. He apparently has riled some feathers.

He apparently, in trying to be balanced, is, to some of my friends on the other side of the aisle, indicating that he is maybe going too far. I disagree with that. I think he is an honorable man. I think he is trying to do the right thing.

I think the gentleman from New York (Mr. Hinchey's) amendment is well intentioned, as it appears to be, could be perceived by some, as just trying to stop somebody from doing their job to provide a fair, balanced approach for our funds that are spent by the CPB.

Mr. Chairman, I hope that we would adhere to the committee position and oppose the Hinchey amendment.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from California, the author of the amendment, section 519 of the Departments of Labor, Health and Human Services, and Education, and Related Agencies Fiscal Year 2006 appropriation bill, for yielding to me.

Section 519, as authored by the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle), would prohibit Medicare, Medicaid, and other public health agencies from paying for erectile dysfunction medications to convicted sex offenders by modifying the medication coverage policies of entitlement programs established under the statutes within the jurisdiction of the Committee of Energy and Commerce, which I chair.

This provision is clearly, and I repeat, clearly, legislating on an appropriations bill, a clear violation of clause 2 of rule XXI of the rules of the House. Legislative changes affecting these public health programs should be properly considered by the authorizing committee of jurisdiction and not in an appropriations bill.

I am, however, very sympathetic to the goals of the sponsor of this provision, what the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle) is trying to accomplish. I have with me a press report by the Associated Press just released today that says in California, the State that the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle) is from, last year their program paid for 137 sex offenders to get these types of drugs, and I know the gentleman from California (Mr. Doolittle) wants to prevent that.

So I am not going to object today because I believe that under no circumstances should taxpayers' dollars be used to pay for providing these medications to convicted sex offenders. We do not want to send the wrong message to these individuals or to the State public health officials that have allowed this to happen.

I did send a letter to the Committee on Rules asking that this language remain subject to a point of order on the floor today; but given these unique circumstances, I have agreed to allow this provision to be included in the bill today.

I want to put the House on notice and the gentleman from California (Mr. Lewis), chairman of the full committee, and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Regula), chairman of the subcommittee, that the Committee on Energy and Commerce will move legislation prohibiting convicted sex offenders from gaining access to these medications before the conference on this appropriations bill is complete.

This is the proper way for the House to address the issue. I would hope that all Members will support this legislation when it comes to the floor in the very near future.

[From the Associated Press]

State Agencies Directed To Stop Providing Such Drugs to Ex-Convicts

San Francisco.--California taxpayers helped pay for Viagra

and other impotence drugs for at least 137 registered sex

offenders in the past year, the state Attorney General's

office said.

An audit found that Medi-Cal--the state Medicaid agency

that funds some health services programs for California's

poor--spent $2.6 million to provide 5,855 men with Viagra and

other erectile dysfunction drugs, including 137 men who were

registered sex offenders, Nathan Barankin, spokesman for

Attorney General Bill Lockyer, said Wednesday.

Lockyer's office received a list of Medi-Cal-funded Viagra

recipients from the Department of Health Services and ran

that list against the men whose whereabouts are registered

with local law enforcement, Barankin said.

Last month, under federal pressure to prevent sex offenders

from obtaining taxpayer-funded Viagra, Gov. Arnold

Schwarzenegger directed state agencies to stop providing such

ex-convicts with erectile dysfunction drugs.

The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services even

warned it might cut federal funding for states that do not

make serious efforts to cut convicted sex offenders off from

these drugs.

State authorities across the country have been searching

their databases after a New York state audit showed that 198

sex offenders there received government-reimbursed Viagra

between January 2000 and March 2005.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Ohio (Chairman Regula) and the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Obey), ranking member, for letting us have this colloquy.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, first I want to comment favorably on how refreshing it is to come to the floor and be exposed to the civility of the debate between the gentleman from California (Mr. Lantos) and our distinguished chairman, the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde). It shows the Congress at its best in terms of debating the high issues before our country. And I want to compliment both gentlemen for their civility and their decorum in this debate.

I also want to thank the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on International Relations, for his leadership on this issue, his dedication to trying to find a solution that reforms the United Nations and puts that body back in the realm that it originally was right after World War II when it was the epitome of world cooperation and hope for the future. Unfortunately, its image has been tarnished, and justifiably so.

My amendment deals with one of the blights on the United Nations, and this is their ill-fated Oil-for-Food program. I was the first subcommittee chairman to hold an investigation on that program back in the mid-1990s under the Clinton administration. The gentleman from Texas (Mr. Hall) and I, on a bipartisan basis at the time, since he was a member of the Democratic Party, held several hearings in the Committee on Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations. We could see even back then that it was a program headed for disaster.

In the last several years, my committee, the Committee on Energy and Commerce, in addition to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Hyde's) committee and the Committee on Government Reform, have launched independent investigations into the Oil-for-Food program, and I have to tell you that the United Nations does not cooperate.

I can tell you of an incident that happened just this week. The Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the Committee on Energy and Commerce is going to hold a hearing in the near future in which we try to bring to light some more of the corruption in that program. We have not deposed, but we have interviewed a U.N. employee who wants to testify, volunteers to testify, on the record. So I had my chief of staff call Paul Volcker, distinguished former Chairman of the Federal Reserve System, and ask Mr. Volcker if this particular individual could testify. Mr. Volcker said he could not. Here is the person appointed by the U.N. to get to the bottom of the corruption in the Oil-for-Food program, distinguished former Chairman of the Federal Reserve System of the United States of America, and he refused to let an employee of the

Mr. Chairman, I ask that we all vote for the amendment.

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

Mr. Speaker, on rollcall No. 268 I was unavoidably detained. Had I been present, I would have voted ``yea.''

Mr. Speaker, in crafting this legislation, the members of the Committee on Energy and Commerce have endeavored to understand and take into account benign and reasonable functions involved with network management, as well as

standard functionalities of the Internet. In that spirit, section 5(b) provides that the Act does not apply to monitoring or interaction with a subscriber's Internet or other network connection or service, or a protected computer, to the extent that the monitoring or interaction is for security purposes, diagnostics, technical support, or repair, or for the detection or prevention of fraudulent activities. In significant part, the intent of this provision is to ensure that providers of Internet services (such as telecommunications carriers and cable operators) have the ability to conduct activities necessary to maintain the integrity of their systems. For instance, large-scale telecommunications carriers may not be held liable under the Act for enterprise-level management and maintenance activities within their own networks.

I would like to add that, in keeping with our Committee's bipartisan process, I am authorized to say that my distinguished colleague, Ranking Member Dingell, agrees with this understanding of our bill.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2520) to provide for the collection and maintenance of human cord blood stem cells for the treatment of patients and research, and to amend the Public Health Service Act to authorize the C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on this legislation and to insert extraneous material on the bill.

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

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2520, the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005, legislation I have cosponsored along with the honorable gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), who is in the Chamber. This would expand the number of stem cell options available to Americans suffering from life-threatening diseases.

Every year, nearly two-thirds of the approximately 200,000 patients in need of a bone marrow transplant will not find a marrow donor match within their families. These patients must rely on the help of strangers to donate bone marrow for a transplant. To assist these patients, Congress established the National Bone Marrow Registry to quickly match donors to patients. Through this program, Congress made a significant investment to connect patients with a rich source of stem cells that offer immediate clinical benefits.

With scientific advances, Congress must now make changes to reflect new

therapeutic options. Cord blood units have been shown to be a suitable alternative to adult bone marrow for the treatment of many diseases, including sickle cell anemia. This is an especially important advancement for those Americans who have desperately searched for a marrow donor but could not find a match with even the help of the National Bone Marrow Registry. As another rich source of stem cells, a cord blood transplant is another chance at life for many of these patients.

The bill before us today builds on the critical investments we have made over the past 2 decades with the National Bone Marrow Registry and retools this design into a new, more comprehensive stem cell transplantation program, which will include not only bone marrow but also cord blood units. Through a competitive contracting process, this new program will allow transplant doctors and patients to access information about cord blood units and bone marrow donors, at the same time, and I want to emphasize at the same time, through a single point of access. This new program does not create a preference for either cord blood or bone marrow. Instead, it will provide comprehensive information about both sources of stem cells to doctors and patients and allow them to make the most clinically appropriate choice.

I want to recognize the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) at this time. It was the gentleman from Florida's (Mr. Young) drive, when he was chairman of the Committee on Appropriations, and his steadfast support for the idea of a national registry for bone marrow that led to the program's creation. The gentleman from Florida's (Mr. Young) lifesaving work is evident again today in the program's new design and goals. I am pleased that Congress is recognizing his dedication by naming this new program the C.W. Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program. I do not see the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young) in the Chamber, but at the appropriate time when he does arrive, I hope that the body will give him a standing ovation for his work in this area.

The capacity to search for cord blood units through a national network of cord blood banks will help facilitate cord blood transplants. We also need to expand the inventory of cord blood units so that more transplants can occur. The bill before us today authorizes a new grant program to provide subsidies to cord blood stem cell banks to expand the inventory of high-quality cord blood units that will be included in the new, expanded Cell Transplantation Program. I think that number is 150,000 units, which is a significant increase.

In addition to expanding the number of cord blood units available for clinical use to save lives today, the bill would also expand the number of cord blood units available for research. Research on adult stem cells holds the potential to develop new cures for many diseases, as well as to expand our knowledge of how human beings develop and the body works.

I would also like to make a personal aside here. My wife and I are expecting a child in September, and we are working with the cord blood people as we speak so that my son, and it is going to be a little boy and we are going to name him Jack Kevin, that we are going to save his cord blood so that some day in the future, if he needs it, it will be available. So in this case I can honestly say, in addition to sponsoring the bill, I am beginning to practice what I am preaching today.

It is not enough to connect patients with lifesaving donors. We also need to better understand how these patients fair when they receive the transplants. The bill would authorize research on the clinical outcomes of patients who are recipients of a stem cell therapeutic product, including bone marrow, cord blood, and other such products, from a biologically unrelated donor. It is my hope that this additional research will trigger new scientific breakthroughs to enhance and advance human life.

This is an important bill that merited many hours of negotiation, demanded the willingness of all those involved to put the interest of their patients first. I would like to thank the bill's primary sponsor, the honorable gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith). I would also like to thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Young); the House leadership, including the honorable gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay); Congressional Black Caucus; the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the ranking Democrat on the committee; the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown), the subcommittee ranking member who is here to speak on the bill; and all of the staff who have labored on this bill.

Particularly, I would like to thank Cheryl Jaeger, on my left, of my committee staff, for all of her efforts. She has been tireless in the last several months working on this bill. In the last few weeks, she has been able to forge a compromise that ultimately was acceptable to all the advocates of both bone marrow and cord blood.

We will continue to improve the legislation that moves forward so that pregnant women are informed of all of their options with respect to cord blood donation and the programmatic activities of the Cell Transplantation Program are clarified.

Mr. Speaker, at the appropriate time, I would urge all of my colleagues to support this bill. It is good legislation, well thought out, and deserving of majority support.

The Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of 2005 Establishes a

Foundation for Improving Access to Lifesaving Cellular Therapy

Transplants

The National Marrow Donor Program (NMDP) is pleased that

the sponsors of the Stem Cell Therapeutic and Research Act of

2005 have taken a positive step forward toward expanding the

long-standing Congressional commitment to cellular transplant

therapies by introducing legislation to continue Federal

support for bone marrow, peripheral blood, and umbilical cord

blood transplantation and research. Through the legislation

introduced today, they acknowledge the important role

Congress has played and must continue to play in ensuring

that the more than 14,000 Americans in need of these types of

transplants have access to them.

The bill calls for Federal dollars to increase the number

of umbilical cord blood units available for transplant and

research. Currently, there are 42,000 units available through

the existing National Bone Marrow Donor Registry (National

Registry), which also lists more than 9 million adult donors

worldwide. With additional umbilical cord blood units added

to this registry, more Americans who would otherwise not be

able to locate a suitably matched adult donor will be able to

find hope through a cord blood transplant. The NMDP estimates

that with access to the existing adult donors and units, the

addition of 150,000 cord blood units listed through the

existing registry will provide a match for approximately 95

percent of Americans.

By designating the existing National Registry as the C.W.

Bill Young Cell Transplantation Program, the sponsors have

acknowledged Representative Young's unwavering commitment to

the National Registry and its growth. In 1986, Representative

Young's vision of a single integrated national bone marrow

donor registry became a reality. Since that time, the

National Registry has facilitated more than 21,000 unrelated

transplants involving cord blood, bone marrow, and peripheral

blood. It now includes more than 5 million U.S. adult

volunteer donors and has links to another 4 million

worldwide. As evidence supporting cord blood as a source of

the same cells found in bone marrow and peripheral blood has

grown, the National Registry, operated by the NMDP, has

expanded to include more than 42,000 cord blood units through

the NMDP's partnership with 14 of the 20 U.S. public cord

blood banks. We join the sponsors in saluting Representative

Young's dedication to helping the thousands of Americans in

need of these types of transplants.

The expansion of the Program will benefit patients most if

they are able to access the new sources of cells easily and

efficiently. The NMDP supports the intent of the sponsors to

provide patients and physicians with access to cord blood,

bone marrow, and peripheral blood stem cells through a single

point of access. To ensure the continued expansion of cord

blood transplants, it is important that patients and

physicians can search for all of these sources through a

single registry, compare each source of cells for transplant

quickly and efficiently, and obtain the cells once the search

process is finished. One-stop-shopping to obtain information

and logistical support is a critical component of the success

of transplantation regardless of whether adult donors or cord

blood units are used. The bill recognizes this need by

calling for a single point of access for these activities to

build upon the National Registry. Using the current registry

as a basis for the new program will ensure that limited

resources are dedicated to increasing the availability of

matches and not in reinventing new bureaucracies.

Although this bill is a step in the right direction, it is

critically important that the Program also have the authority

to establish criteria and standards that provide transplant

physicians with the assurances they

need to be confident that when they compare various cord

blood units and/or adult donors, they have the same type of

information about each unit or donor. In addition, the NMDP

urges members to recognize that transplant patients may

encounter other barriers to accessing cellular therapy

transplants. The need for assistance in addressing barriers

to access should be extended to all recipients of transplants

under this program, regardless of cell source. Physicians and

patients must be able to receive all of the services

necessary for a successful transplant, including distribution

coordination, patient counseling, translation assistance,

testing, insurance coordination, and other patient advocacy

services. We look forward to working with the sponsors and

the Department of Health and Human Services to strengthen

these provisions of the legislation.

The NMDP applauds the sponsors for undertaking this

important public health initiative. Through their leadership,

thousands of Americans who might otherwise die will have

access to lifesaving bone marrow, peripheral blood stem cell,

and cord blood transplants.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that debate on this motion be extended by 20 minutes, equally divided between myself and the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), the original author of the bill and my cosponsor.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Ferguson), a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon), a doctor, and one of our more thoughtful Members on this subject and somebody who has given a lot of time to it.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Daniel E. Lungren).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 15 seconds to the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith), very briefly.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to a member of the committee, the distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy).

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished Majority Leader of the great State of Texas (Mr. DeLay), Fort Bend County, Sugarland.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence), the distinguished leader of the Republican Study Committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have three willing speakers now and more on the way.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), the distinguished Congressman and former Governor of the first State of our Union.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Pennsylvania (Ms. Hart).

Mr. Speaker, I have one speaker remaining, and I will close.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Weldon).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from the Keystone State of Pennsylvania (Mr. Weldon).

Mr. Speaker, how much time remains?

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself the balance of my time, and I want to thank the majority leader and the Speaker for bringing these two bills to the floor today.

The first vote we will have is on the cord blood and bone marrow bill, H.R. 2520. This bill, by itself, is an extremely important advance for those of us that believe you can use medical research ethically to help find cures for existing disease and enhance human life both now and in the future.

I am, obviously, as one of the original sponsors of the bill, going to vote for it and encourage all the Members on both sides of the aisle to vote for its. It is a good piece of legislation and, by itself, is a major advancement in the state of the art that we have today.

The next debate that we will have is on the Castle-DeGette bill which is another form of stem cell research, embryonic stem cell. That issue is much more controversial, but on its own merit that bill itself deserves a serious debate. And while it is not yet time to debate that bill, at that time I will announce that I will vote for that bill also.

So I hope we can do first things first. Let us pass in a strong bipartisan fashion the Smith-Barton-Young adult cord blood bone marrow bill, and then go on to the next issue.

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to the order of the House of Monday, May 23, 2005, I call up the bill (H.R. 810) to amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for human embryonic stem cell research, and ask for its immediate consideration.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) be given 45 minutes of the debate time on the pending bill.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) be allowed to control 20 minutes of the remaining 45 minutes that I currently have control over.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and to insert extraneous material on the pending bill.

Mr. Speaker, I yield myself 5 minutes.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a prepared statement I am going to put into the record on this bill, H.R. 810, but I am going to actually speak from the heart because I think that this is a very important issue.

Most of the issues that come before this body, there is an automatic position on. It may be the Republican position, the Democrat position, the Texas position, or it could be the committee position. And we come to the floor and we, almost by rote, say what is the particular position, and that is the way we vote.

But every now and then an issue comes up that is really an issue of conscience. It is an issue that deserves to be thoughtfully considered, debated, and decided on its own merit.

Now, there are many Members today that believe this particular issue is an issue that they feel so strongly about, on either side, that this is an easy issue for them, it is an automatic issue. They are going to be for it or against it for very valid reasons. But there are some of us, and I am in that camp today, that believe it is not an easy issue.

I come to the floor as a 100 percent lifetime voting member on prolife issues, minus one vote, in over 21 years. On all the votes that the prolife coalition at the State and Federal levels have scored as scorable votes, my record until this year was 100 percent, and I voted the wrong way on one issue so far this year from the prolife position. So that is not a bad record, 100 percent minus one. And after this vote today, I am going to be 100 percent minus two.

Why is that? Well, part of it is personal and part of it deals with tragedies in my family in the past. My father died of complications of diabetes at the age of 71. My brother, Jon Kevin Barton, died of liver cancer at the age of 44. My first granddaughter, Bryn Barton, died in the womb 2 days before delivery with complications of the umbilical cord, which had become crimped, and she was actually born dead.

Maybe the research we are debating today could not have helped any of those diseases or could not have helped my granddaughter, but maybe it could.

I am also going to vote for Castle-DeGette because of the future, not just the past. My wife Terri and I are expecting a baby in September, Jack Kevin Barton, named after her late father and my late brother, Jon Kevin Barton. He may come into this world with some disease. Hopefully not. I have three children that are already alive, Brad, Alison, and Kristin. I have two stepchildren, Lindsay and Cullen. I have three grandchildren that are living, Blake, Brent and Bailey Barton. Maybe they will live healthy, productive lives and they will never need some therapeutic breakthrough, but maybe they will. Maybe they will.

Now, we just voted for an expansion of cord blood and bone marrow research, which is a very, very good deal, and it deals with adult stem cells. And maybe the breakthrough is going to come in adult stem cells. I hope it does. I would love it. But maybe, just maybe, it is going to come because of embryonic stem cells.

Now, the President adopted a position in early 2001 that said the existing stem cell lines then in existence could be federally funded for research. They thought there were about 78 lines. It turned out that there were 22 they are using, there are 16 that are frozen, and there may be one or two more that might be used. But in any event, none of those lines that are currently allowed to be used for research purposes at the Federal level have been shown to have that breakthrough stem cell.

There are 200 adult cells in the body. The hope of stem cell research, whether it is adult or embryonic, is that we will find that one perfect cell that can be replicated into any of the other cells.

It is assumed, and it is an assumption, not a fact, that the plasticity of the embryonic cell is better and that there is a greater likelihood, although the research has only been done for the last 7 or 8 years, that there is a likelihood there might be a greater potential. And I want to emphasize might be.

So where I come down is, let us look at all the avenues.

We just voted for Smith-Barton-Young. Let us also vote for Castle- DeGette and look at all of our resources. That is why I am going to vote ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, I rise to manage the time of debate on H.R. 810, legislation designed to expand the number of sources of embryonic stem cell lines that may be the subject of federally funded research. The bill is straightforward, yet the policy concerns surrounding this bill are anything but black and white. Before I yield time to my colleagues, I want to clarify a few of the following facts.

What the sponsors of this bill are trying to do is create enough lines of embryonic stem cells to allow basic scientific research to move forward. Many scientists believe that once we can identify a perfect, undifferentiated stem call, it will lead to significant scientific breakthroughs and the discovery of cures for many diseases.

Currently, there are approximately 22 lines of embryonic stem cells that are available for federally funded research. This number is far below the estimated number of stem cell lines that were thought to exist in August of 2001, when the President announced his stem cell policy. When President Bush announced that Federal research dollars could be used for the first time on then existing stem cells, it was believed that there were at least 60 viable lines of stem cells that could be used for this research. For a variety of reasons, not all of these potential lines are now available for research.

We will also eventually need additional embryonic stem cell lines to make further scientific advances. In recent conversations with leading stem cell researchers, they indicated to me that all lines of embryonic stem cells eventually become exhausted. In order to produce clinical therapies, it is likely that researchers will also need more embryonic stem cell lines, of different genetic variations, than are presently eligible to receive Federal support.

In addition, the majority of the existing embryonic stem cell lines eligible for Federal support use mouse feeder cells, which will make it nearly impossible for these embryonic stem cell lines to be adopted in clinical use. For all of these reasons, researchers believe that the current number of embryonic stem cell lines will have to be increased.

It is difficult to take an ideologically pure position on this issue. President Bush recognized this on August 9, 2001. On recognizing the profound potential benefits of embryonic stem cell research, President Bush permitted for the first time Federal taxpayer dollars to be spent on embryonic stem cell research.

For my entire career in Congress, I have been a staunch defender of the culture of life and opposed all forms of abortion. At the same time, I believe we have an obligation to improve existing lives and do what we can to make them better in the future.

Today, on this difficult issue, Members will need to vote their consciences. My decision to support this bill was a difficult one, which I came to only after much personal struggle and reflection. My decision was shaped, in part, by the painful experiences of my own family. We lost my brother Jon in 2000, at the age of 44, after a long struggle with liver cancer. My father died after suffering from complications resulting from diabetes.

Let me tell you for a moment about my brother, Jon. He was younger than me. He and his wife, Jennifer, had two children, Jake and Jace. He was a State district judge in Texas. They told Jon he had liver cancer when he was just 41 years old. We tried everything and, in fact, his cancer went into remission. The next year, it came back. Jon died in just three months short of his 44th birthday. I offered to give him part of my liver, but the doctors said he was too far-gone and it wouldn't work. That was five years ago. Jake is now 15, and Jace is 12. Every time I see them and their Mom, I think of Jon and wonder what stem cell research could have done for our family.

I cannot know the truth with absolute certainty, but my heart says that my brother and my father might be with me today if their doctors had access to treatments from stem cell research. Their lives were precious to me and to our family. I come to my decision on this vote because I believe in life, and in the future. If a vote today can save other families from losing brothers and fathers, my conscience will not permit any other decision.

I fully understand that some will say I am just wrong, or blinded by personal emotion. Many who disagree with me are my friends, and I completely respect their views and their advice. They are good people, and good people with the same facts sometimes come to different conclusions. Now, a few others will say that death is simply a part of life. No, it is not. I do not believe that we can ever accept that proposition without setting out on an extraordinary and dangerous path. Life is to be cherished and extended, and death is to be fought and never accepted.

My father and my brother died because illnesses took them. If I can do something to cure illness and thwart death for other families, I will because I must. Scientists believe that expanded embryonic stem cell research holds the potential to find cures for diseases like cancer or diabetes. It is my hope that supporting this bill will mean that many other American families will never have to endure the suffering and loss that my family went through. I believe that my obligation is to help advance science to make human life better now and in the future, in a manner that is consistent with Judeo-Christian ethics.

As we move forward with debate on this bill, my only request is that my colleagues try to respect one another and the deeply held beliefs on both sides of this very complex issue.

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

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Bono), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Burgess), member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from New Hampshire (Mr. Bass), a member of the committee.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from North Carolina (Mrs. Myrick), who is a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from the great State of Missouri, the Show Me State (Mr. Blunt), the distinguished majority whip.

Mr. Speaker, I am prepared to recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Pitts) if the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) also wants to recognize him at this time. I yield him 1 minute.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from California (Mr. Dreier), the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Rules.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns), the distinguished subcommittee chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the distinguished gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Ferguson), a member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Murphy), a distinguished doctor on the Committee on Energy and Commerce.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield for the purpose of making a unanimous consent request to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent).

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

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

Mr. Speaker, first of all, I want to thank the majority leader, the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay), for

the tenor of the debate today and for granting extended time and making sure all points of view have been heard on this important issue.

Although I am going to vote for Castle/DeGette, I do not necessarily speak as an advocate for its passage as much as I want to speak about why I have decided to vote for it.

I respect Members on both sides of this issue. I made sure that members of the committee I chair, the Committee on Energy and Commerce, regardless of their position, had an opportunity to speak and put their comments on the record.

I come at this as a 100 percent pro-life, lifetime, voting Member of Congress. As I said earlier, this will be my second vote this year where I have not adopted the pro-life position. So I am not quite 100 percent any more, but I would think that 99.8 percent over 21 years qualifies me as a pro-life Congressman.

I have also voted numerous times for our defense bill, where we have voted hundreds of billions of dollars to defend our Nation and put our young men and women at risk, some of them that might have to give up their lives. I have voted for many bills for our law enforcement officials, where again they may have to give up their lives to protect the common good.

Now, you might say, yes, but in those instances they were adults and they had free will and they voluntarily made a choice that they might have to sacrifice their lives.

Well, I accept and support that an embryo is a life. I agree with the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Ferguson) that we were all embryos once. I understand that. And, obviously, at 7 days or 14 days, embryos do not have consciousness. They do not have free will. They do not have the neuro cells or brain cells to make a decision whether they want to voluntarily make a sacrifice. I understand that.

But I would say this: If they did, out of the 400,000 that we think may be in existence, if you narrow that down to the 2.8 percent that the gentleman from Texas (Mr. DeLay) talked about that are probably not going to be used for reproductive purposes, if they did, would not some of them, knowing the stakes, volunteer? It only takes one, the right one, that magic silver bullet embryo that creates that magic stem cell that can be replicated into any of the 200 cell lines that make up the human body.

If I had that opportunity, might I not take advantage of it? Somebody would. And since they cannot, because they do not have consciousness, under a traditional law in this United States of America we give custody to the parents. A parent will make a decision at some point in time, or a family member will make a decision at some point in time that perhaps they do not want to put up for adoption, which is the decision I would make.

Why not? In addition to the cord blood bill that we have just passed, why not make it possible for some of these under the conditions in the Castle/DeGette bill for some to be used for research purposes. It does not take many. I respect those who say, no, you cannot do it at all. But I also say given a choice, let us err on the side of opportunity. That is why I am going to vote ``yes.''

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 29) to protect users of the Internet from unknowing transmission of their personally identifiable information through spyware programs, and for other purposes, as amended.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks on this legislation and insert extraneous material in the Record.

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

Mr. Speaker, today the House will consider legislation to prohibit Internet spying. Spyware is a growing danger to Internet users and one that demands our immediate attention. Recent statistics indicate that spyware is on the rise, with the highest areas of growth in Trojans, keystroke loggers and system monitors, the worst-of-the-worst spyware technologies.

The Committee on Energy and Commerce has worked expeditiously this Congress to move antispyware legislation through the committee for consideration by the House. This legislation is largely the same as H.R. 2929 from the 108th Congress, a bill that passed the House by a vote of 399-1. It is my hope that H.R. 29 will receive a similar endorsement today on this floor.

The changes that have been made to the SPY ACT since the last Congress are of two general types. The Committee on Energy and Commerce worked hard to refine the legislation to take into account legitimate and benign business functions, as well as standard functionalities of the Internet while preserving meaningful consumer notice and consent. The committee has also continued to strengthen the antifraud provisions of the bill by giving the Federal Trade Commission better enforcement tools against the ever-increasing types of fraudulent behavior associated with Internet spying.

The legislation that we are considering today, number one, prohibits unfair and deceptive practices like home page hijacking, keystroke logging, and Web-based phishing; two, provides for a prominent opt-in for consumers prior to the collection of personally identifiable information by monitoring spyware. This is a very, very important provision of the bill. Three, provides for a prominent opt-in for consumers prior to the collection of information regarding Web pages accessed and the subsequent delivery of advertisements based on that information; four, requires that monitoring software be easily disabled at the direction of the consumer; five, requires companies that are sending ads to computers to identify with each ad the information collection program that is generating the ad. With this disclosure, consumers will know who is bombarding them with ads and will be able to make decisions about those pieces of software accordingly. Number six, provides for FTC enforcement with significant monetary penalties for those who knowingly violate the act; and, seven, sets up a uniform national rule. Internet commerce is inherently interstate in nature. We need one set of rules for such commerce, not 50.

We have just today also passed a bill that makes explicit some criminal penalties for purveyors of the worst kinds of spyware. I think it is appropriate that in certain instances, such as deceptive phishing leading to identity theft, the perpetrators need to go to jail. I want to thank the Committee on the Judiciary for their work in that area. However, I believe we need to do more to protect consumers. I believe we need to recognize the right of each consumer to be informed of spying taking place on his or her computer and be able to say no to that spying. This bill does that. The bill that we just passed from the Committee on the Judiciary does not do that.

I believe that we need to require of ad companies the responsibility to inform consumers and to get their consent before they start installing devices on consumers' computers that keep track of everything that they do, and their children do, on the Internet. This bill does that. The bill from the Committee on the Judiciary does not do that.

And I believe that companies have an obligation to disable spying programs if the consumers no longer want them. A consumer should have more options than just throwing away his computer if it is infected with spyware. This bill does that. The bill that came out of the Committee on the Judiciary does not do that.

It is this empowerment of consumers and the recognition that each consumer has the right to control what goes on his or her own computer that makes this bill, H.R. 29, a very important tool to protect consumers against spyware. That consumer protection will be my goal when we go to conference with the Senate.

I want to commend a number of Members for their outstanding leadership on this issue. The gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Bono) who will speak later in the debated introduced the original bill in the last Congress and has been a tireless educator on the dangers of spyware. The gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns) cosponsored the original legislation with the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Bono), and he has been great in his bipartisan support of this particular project. The gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns), the chairman of the Subcommittee on Trade and Consumer Protection, has been a leader on all the privacy-related issues in the committee and has worked with the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Bono) and the gentleman from New York (Mr. Towns) on this legislation.

The gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell), the ranking member of the full committee, and the gentlewoman from Illinois (Ms. Schakowsky), who is leading the floor debate on the Democratic side, have worked tirelessly in both the subcommittee and the full committee to perfect this bipartisan legislation.

This is a good bill. It is a bipartisan bill. It passed the Committee on Energy and Commerce unanimously. I would urge that it pass the floor later this afternoon with that same level of support.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Stearns), subcommittee chairman.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield 5 minutes to the distinguished gentlewoman from Palm Springs, California (Mrs. Bono), the author of the original bill, who knows more about these types of issues than anybody on the committee.

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

Mr. Speaker, I would like to read into the Record the companies and the organizations that support H.R. 29. This is with letters on the Record where they have written to me and the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Dingell) that they support the legislation: the Business Software Alliance; the Center For Democracy and Technology; the Council For Marketing and Opinion Research; Dell Corporation; DoubleClick, Incorporated, and ValueClick, Incorporated; eBay, Incorporated; Fidelity; Humana, Incorporated; Microsoft; 180 Solutions; the Recording Industry of America; Time Warner/AOL; United States Telecom Association; Webroot Software, Incorporated; WhenU; and Yahoo. These companies all officially on the record support H.R. 29.

Mr. Speaker, I think as the debate has shown, there is broad bipartisan support for this. There is also a need for this. I have spoken with Senator Burns of the other body. He is preparing to move a companion bill. We have also obviously talked to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Chairman Sensenbrenner) and the subcommittee chairman, the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Goodlatte), on their bill; and we are prepared to work with them to merge the bills at the appropriate time.

This is an issue whose time has come. Almost every American household now has a personal computer, and almost every one of those computers has spyware on them; and in most cases the owner of that computer does not know it. It is time to put a stop to that foolishness. It is time to say enough is enough. It is time to pass H.R. 29, work with the other body to pass a companion bill, go to conference, create a compromise bill, and then send the bill to the President's desk.

So I would encourage a ``yes'' vote, Mr. Speaker, and before I yield back, compliment you on your work on this. I think we should say the gentleman from California (Mr. Radanovich) also has been tireless in his support for the bill.

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

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

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security for offering my amendment when it would have been very easy for the gentleman to just let it go when I was not here, but being the gentleman he is, he did the honorable decent thing, and I appreciate that.

Mr. Chairman, let me say that the Dingell-Barton amendment that is before us right now makes a simple but important change to H.R. 1817, the Department of Homeland Security Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2006. This bipartisan amendment enshrines a commitment made by the Committee on Homeland Security but which was inadvertently left out of the Cox manager's amendment.

There are two primary reasons that the Committee on Energy and Commerce, which I chair, decided to mark up H.R. 1817. First was the creation of Assistant Secretary for Cybersecurity at the Department of Homeland Security. The issue of cybersecurity is one that is core to the jurisdiction of the Committee on Energy and Commerce. Indeed, the committee has existing oversight on telecommunications, nuclear, energy and information networks, systems, facilities and equipment over which any cybersecurity attack would occur as well as the potential effects of cybersecurity incidents on our Nation's interstates and foreign commerce.

The other primary reason, and the one for which I am offering this amendment today, is to require, and I want to emphasize require, the Department of Homeland Security to coordinate with other relevant Federal agencies, especially as it pertains to the protection of critical infrastructure. Many of these Federal agencies are taking strong and innovative steps to protect the critical infrastructure they regulate, which is why it is so important for the Department of Homeland Security to closely coordinate with these agencies.

Unfortunately, the Committee on Homeland Security which had assured us that this particular language would be a part of the manager's amendment, did not get included, and I understand it was inadvertent. But because of that reason we have had to offer this as an amendment on the floor. It is my understanding that the gentleman from California (Mr. Cox), the chairman of the committee, fully support this language, and I am not aware that anybody opposes it. I hope at the appropriate time we can pass this by voice vote and all Members voting aye.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, there are a number of places in the manager's amendment to H.R. 11817

that refer to coordination efforts between the Department of Homeland Security with ``other relevant Federal agencies,'' specifically as it relates to protection of critical infrastructure and cybersecurity. I want to ask the distinguished chairman of the Committee on Homeland Security if those ``other relevant Federal agencies'' would include the departments and agencies under the jurisdiction of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, including the Department of Commerce, Department of Energy, Department of Health and Human Services, Federal Communications Commission, Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, Nuclear Regulatory Commission, Federal Trade Commission, National Information Agency, and the Environmental Protection Agency?

I thank the gentleman for his explanation and look forward to working with him to ensure that all relevant Federal agencies have a role to play in homeland security. And although it is not a part of the colloquy, there may come a day when the gentleman from California is the chairman of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, and he will be very glad he answered yes to those questions.