Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, I rise before you today to recognize John Nelson Cowen of Jefferson County, IL. John was recently inducted into the Senior Saints Hall of Fame of Jefferson County.

John received this honor for his lifelong service to others. Throughout his life John raised a family, sang for community events with the Barbershop Chorus, annually served at the Kiwanis Pancake and Sausage Breakfast, provided inexpensive housing to low income families, and contributed to the education of underprivileged children. He is still actively involved as a Sunday School teacher at Park Avenue Baptist Church where he has taught for 70 years. John also loves his country so much he chose to not draw Social Security so that others in need can benefit from it.

I want to congratulate and thank John for all he has done and will continue to do for the people in his community. He is a saint to all who know him and is deserving of this prestigious honor.

Mr. Speaker, I rise before you today to recognize Jack Goldman of Jefferson County, Illinois. Jack was recently inducted into the Senior Saints Hall of Fame of Jefferson County.

Jack received this honor for his lifelong service to others. He served in World War II as a combat engineer in the United States Army. Jack participated in the invasions of Leyte and Okinawa. After serving his country he returned to Mt. Vernon where he has literally and figuratively changed his community. Jack became involved with the Acquisition Committee for the Arts in the City Foundation and as chairman of the Sculpture Committee for Cedarhurst. He was named Counselor Emeritus for Mitchell Museum in 1995. Jack is an architect with Fields, Goldman, and Magee; and is also a member of the Mt. Vernon Rotary Club and the Downtown Development Corporation. He and his wife, Joan, are members of United Methodist Church.

I want to congratulate and thank Jack for all he has done and will continue to do for the people in his community. He is a saint to all who know him and is deserving of this prestigious honor.

Mr. Speaker, I rise before you today to recognize Nancy Germann of Jefferson County, Illinois. Nancy was recently inducted into the Senior Saints Hall of Fame of Jefferson County.

Nancy received this honor for her lifelong service to others. For thirty-three years she made a positive difference in the lives of students. She loves teaching so much she returned to the classroom after her retirement as a special education aide. Nancy is extremely involved in her church and community. Some of her activities include singing in the church choir, assisting with the soup kitchen and Thanksgiving dinner for the needy, and serving as a director for Cedarhurst Chamber Music along with helping with other Cedarhurst activities.

I want to congratulate and thank Nancy for all she has done and will continue to do for the people in her community. She is a saint to all who know her and is deserving of this prestigious honor.

Mr. Speaker, I rise before you today to recognize Alfred ``Mugsy'' Bean of Jefferson County, Illinois. Mugsy was recently inducted into the Senior Saints Hall of Fame of Jefferson County.

Mugsy received this honor for his lifelong service to others. On the bombing of Pearl Harbor, Mugsy immediately volunteered for service to his country. He was embroiled in World War II for close to four years. For the past 25 years Mugsy has served as a member of American Legion Post 141 Funeral Detail and has worked on the Jefferson County Veteran's Memorial Committee. He is known to treat all with the same respect and to reach out to those in need. Mugsy has been married to Louise for 58 years and has raised four children.

I want to congratulate and thank Mugsy for all he has done and will continue to do for the people in his community. He is a saint to all who know him and is deserving of this prestigious honor.

Mr. Speaker, I rise before you today to recognize Wilma Kimmel of Jefferson County, Illinois. Wilma was recently inducted into the Senior Saints Hall of Fame of Jefferson County.

Wilma received this honor for her lifelong service to others. She is known as a dedicated wife and mother. She and her husband, Ardell, raised three children. In order to help send her children to college she began work as a secretary for the Mt. Vernon School System where she worked for twenty years.

Wilma has been involved with the 4-H Club, Rend Lake Piecemakers Quilt Guild, and Herbs for Health and Fun. No one can say that Wilma is not devoted to her church. At Central Christian Church she is known as a ready and willing hand for wherever there is a need. She is described as one who gets the job done and one who never complains.

I want to congratulate and thank Wilma for all she has done and will continue to do for the people in her community. She is a saint to all who know her and is deserving of this prestigious honor.

Mr. Speaker, I rise before you today to recognize Ardell Kimmel of Jefferson County, Illinois. Ardell was recently inducted into the Senior Saints Hall of Fame of Jefferson County.

Ardell received this honor for his lifelong service to others. He served his country in

World War II as a United States Navy Gunnery Mate. After the war he earned a degree in agriculture. Throughout his life he has shared with high school and college students his knowledge of agriculture. He has been involved with the 4-H Club, Southern Illinois Agri-Business Club, King City Dinner Club, and American Legion Post 141. Ardell is actively involved at Central Christian Church where he serves in numerous ways. He and his wife, Wilma, have also raised two daughters and one son.

I want to congratulate and thank Ardell for all he has done and will continue to do for the people in his community. He is a saint to all who know him and is deserving of this prestigious honor.

Mr. Speaker, I rise before you today to recognize Rev. Leroy Dude of Jefferson County, IL. Leroy was recently inducted into the Senior Saints Hall of Fame of Jefferson County.

Leroy received this honor for his lifelong service to others. For 45 years Reverend Dude served as pastor of West Salem Trinity United Methodist Church. He performed many baptisms, weddings, and funerals; as well as mowing the lawns of others, helping to paint barn roofs, and planting trees. Leroy also has served as trustee and clerk of Shiloh Township. He and his late wife raised five children.

I want to congratulate and thank Leroy for all he has done and will continue to do for the people in his community. He is a saint to all who know him and is deserving of this prestigious honor.

Madam Chairman, I want to remind all Members that the page reception is occurring as we speak down in the Members' dining room. If you have a page here in this class, if you would get down to the Members' dining room and make sure you say hi to them. If you are a Member that has developed a good relationship with pages and want to make sure you say farewell, that is going on now as we speak.

Mr. Speaker, we have heard a lot of debate this morning already about no opportunities, but of course our friends on the other side will get an opportunity for a motion to recommit; and I think they can use that to highlight the plan, whatever it is that they have to offer.

In southern Illinois we still have some of those old water pumps. You crank that pump and sometimes you crank and crank and there is no water that comes out. So what do you have to do? You have to get water. You have to pour it down to prime it. And then as you use that pump, the water comes up. That is what we are trying to do today.

There are two basic provisions on this tax cut bill, one is for individuals and one is for businesses, directly primarily to small businesses, the main job-creation engine of our country. It is not just individuals who are hurting but local governments are hurting, counties, States, townships, local communities. The best way to get us out of our deficits and our malaise and our problems throughout this country is to get a growing, thriving economy. That is what we are trying to do today. That is what this bill does. That is why I support it.

Mr. Speaker. I rise today out of concern for America's telecommunications industry.

Service providers and equipment manufacturers are going out of business, workers have been laid off, and capital investment is frozen. Experts agree the industry is experiencing an ``economic meltdown.'' Once an engine of economic prosperity in the 1990s, this important sector is now a driver of the current recession.

Why is this happening?

In order to spur competition in the local phone market, the Telecommunications Act of 1996 required the local Bell companies to rent out their networks to competitors while they developed a customer base and built their own facilities.

That is fine. However, many state regulators set the Bells' leasing rates significantly below the cost of maintaining their lines. For some time now, the incumbent phone companies have been bleeding money while big players, such as Worldcom, take advantage of these artificially low rates that were designed to help new entrants gain access to the market. Without contributing to the local infrastructure, these companies are cherry picking lucrative business and select residential customers, while leaving the Bells to serve everyone else.

Instead of helping the little guys get started and bringing true competition to the local phone market, this regulation is a boondoggle for a few big companies at the expense of the

regional Bells. This is not a sustainable economic model, as we are now witnessing.

Recently, the Federal Communications Commission had the opportunity to turn things around in their Triennial Review. They failed to do so.

Instead of correcting the rate structure and creating the regulatory certainty necessary to stabilize the industry, the FCC managed to produce even more uncertainty by punting to the states the rate decision they were supposed to establish. This means that the rate structure for local telephone service will now have to go through lengthy legal battles in 50 different states and in the District of Columbia before it is resolved. Unless something is done, for years to come, lawyers will profit and the status quo will prevail.

I urge the FCC to reconsider its decision. You cannot fool an industry into recovery by creating a facade of competition.

Mr. Speaker, I take this 5 minutes to talk about an historical trend in this country that ties together those who have come before us in the past and those who are serving today, and I speak about the long gray line and those individuals who have served at West Point.

Many of us know that West Point celebrated its 200th anniversary last year, 200th anniversary of creating leaders of character to serve in our Nation and that commitment by this country to have a professional military institution that helps train leaders of character to lead our young men and women into battle but also understands how to deal with the current civil military operations that are occurring is a great credit to this country and one that we need to remember.

Many of us know the great names of Lee and Grant and Eisenhower and Patton, MacArthur, those who have gone there before, but I want to brag, if I may, about my classmates, graduates of the class of 1980 who are serving so admirably currently now in Iraq. They probably would not like me to be doing this, but I take this opportunity as a Member of Congress to speak in pride about my classmates.

I brought down my graduation yearbook, and although many of my colleagues cannot see it, I turn to a page and a familiar picture for those of us who have been following the briefings. We have a young Vince Brooks, first captain of the class of 1980. Yes, it is the same Vince Brooks who is giving the briefings over in Qatar on a daily basis talking about our command.

The line of my classmates is long and very grand in their services, and I want to recognize them all here.

Lieutenant Colonel (promotable) John Agoglia, J5 Plans CENTCOM; Colonel (promotable) Chuck Anderson, Chief of Staff, 32nd Army Air and Missile Defense Command. I mentioned Brigadier General Vince Brooks, Deputy for Operations and Coalition spokesman. Colonel Dave Brown, G3 section, V Corp, Iraq; Lieutenant Colonel Curt Cheeseman, J5 Plans, CENTCOM; Colonel Perry Clawson, Commander of the 1186th Transportation Terminal Brigade; John Davis, who is in the CENTCOM area of operation; Pat Donahue; Lieutenant Colonel Bruce Dow, HQ, Stateside; Lieutenant Colonel Bill Duffy, Commander, Task Force 513 Military Intelligence.

I want to pause here to say that many of my classmates are active duty and have served now over 20 years. Many of them are serving continually as reservists or members of the National Guard. We cannot tell the difference when I read this list because of the one Army philosophy that joins Active, Reserve and Guardsmen.

Lieutenant Colonel Dale Egger, Commander of 3rd Battalion, 289th Training Support Brigade, Stateside; Jim Embrey, in Kuwait; Colonel Mark Eshelman, 3rd Army, CENTCOM; Lieutenant Colonel T.J. Farrell, Force Protection Officer, 143rd TRANSCOM in Kuwait; Colonel Tim Glaeser, Commander, 11th ADA Brigade, Kuwait; Major Curt Grayer, Deputy Commander, 310th Personnel Support Group; Lieutenant Colonel Vern Green, Commander, 1181st Transportation Terminal Battalion; Colonel Ben Hodges, Commander, 1st Battalion, 101st Airborne Division; Lieutenant Colonel Frank Hudson, assignment undisclosed, 5th Special Forces Group, somewhere in the area of operation; Lieutenant Colonel Doug Lobdell, commander, 361st Training Support Brigade; Lieutenant Colonel Jan Kozlowski, C7 engineer, Kuwait; Lieutenant Colonel Mark Kucera, Forward Engineer Support Team; Colonel Mike Linnington, Commander, 2nd Brigade, 101st Airborne Division; Colonel Dave MacLean, J5-E, CENTCOM; Colonel Steve Mains, Chief, JFCOM J9, Lessons Learned Team, CENTCOM; Dr. Major Kathy Mathews, who is the wife of one of my classmates, Johnny Ham, who is a brigade surgeon in the 108th Brigade; Lieutenant Colonel Tom Miller, Civil Affairs Officer, en route to CENTCOM; Lieutenant Colonel Paul Oettinger, Commander of the 195th Contract Support Detachment, Kuwait; Colonel John Peabody, Commander, 3rd Infantry Division; Colonel Dave Perkins, Commander, 2nd Brigade, 3rd Infantry Division, Baghdad, Iraq; Colonel Tony Puckett, J5, Kuwait; Lieutenant Colonel Willie Ramos, Commander, 345th Rear Area Operations Center; CW3 Kathy Silvia, en route to CENTCOM; Colonel (promotable) Joe Votel, Commander of the 75th Ranger Regiment, location undisclosed; Kurt Westerman, en route to

Mr. Chairman, our constituents are concerned about gasoline price volatility. This energy bill addresses part of these concerns by promoting the use of domestic renewable fuels like ethanol. However, current regulations prohibit retailers from commingling ethanol and non-ethanol blended gasoline in their storage tanks. This limits the ability of retailers to provide uninterrupted gasoline service at the best price for their customers and could lead to higher retail prices. We should correct this problem.

I would like to ask my chairman to enter into a colloquy with me on this.

I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the gentleman for his attention. I look forward to working with the chairman and the House conferees.

Mr. Chairman, it is in our national interest to expand the grid.

If Members want to end market manipulation, oppose the Dingell amendment and expand the grid. If they want to protect critical infrastructure, expand the grid and oppose this amendment. If Members want to lower prices for consumers, oppose this amendment and help us expand the grid. If Members want to create jobs in America today, they have to oppose the Dingell

amendment because we have to expand the grid.

Expanding the grid is in the critical national interests of our Nation. I cannot believe that we would have an amendment, when we have energy security issues, and we would not work to expand the transmission grid in this country.

Mr. Chairman, I too have a good friend from Ohio, but I would say the whole supply and demand equation still works. We are trying to get more supply through oil exploration. We have not built a new refinery in this country in 25, 30 years. Unfortunately, our bill does not help ease some regulatory burdens or have incentives to create new refineries. That is how we would solve their problem.

I fly into St. Louis, Missouri and if we fill up with gasoline in St. Louis and I have to drive to Springfield, Illinois, I go through three different fuel blends. There are three different fuel blends. There is a different fuel blend for St. Louis. There is a different fuel blend for Metro East, and there is a different fuel blend for Springfield, Illinois. Mr. Chairman, which fuel blend are we going to use to store and how do we separate it?

The intent is good. This cannot be implemented in the country today. So I would ask for defeat of the Brown amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 389) to authorize the use of certain grant funds to establish an information clearinghouse that provides information to increase public access to defibrillation in schools.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their remarks and insert extraneous material on H.R. 389.

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

Mr. Speaker, what I have before me is an emergency external defibrillator, and that is the purpose of the bill we have on the floor as we speak. It is an incredible device that saves lives, and that is what this legislation is a means to address.

As one of the original co-sponsors of this bill and as a proud member of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, I would like to commend all of those who have worked to bring this legislation to the floor.

This is a training model of an AED, an acronym that stands for Automatic External Defibrillator. While the training device cannot save a life, AEDs can and have in every corner of the States. While many know about our Chicago airports which have lead the Nation establishing public access to defibrillation programs, I would like to tell you the story about Sean Morely. Sean is a 13-year-old boy from Buffalo Grove, Illinois, whose life was saved because of an AED. While playing baseball Sean was hit in the chest by a fastball. He went into sudden cardiac arrest, a condition where the victim's heart most commonly flutters in the chest, but does not provide the body with oxygenated blood. Within 10 minutes, there is nearly zero chance of saving a cardiac arrest victim's life. But Sean was lucky. A passing police officer from another district used the defibrillator in the trunk of his car to restore a normal heart beat for the young athlete.

It is important to realize that defibrillation is the only way to restart a sudden cardiac arrest victim's heart. Without that defibrillator, this story would have had a much different ending.

Stories like these have driven State governments to pass bills requiring AEDs in numerous locations. The Adam Act will help our local communities by setting up a national clearinghouse to provide schools with how-to and technical advice to set up public access defibrillation programs. It will ensure that schools have access to the appropriate training, successful fund-raising techniques, and other logistics involved. This is particularly helpful to smaller school districts that do not have the local resources such as a major hospital that often exist in more urban areas.

The clearinghouse will also collect data on a large scale, an effort to allow for research with issues related to cardiac death in children and adolescents.

Over 200,000 Americans die each year of sudden cardiac arrest including children. The American Heart Association estimates that about 50,000 of these victims' lives could be saved each year with a strong chain of survival. The chain of survival includes an immediate call to 911, early CPR and defibrillation, and the arrival of early advanced life support.

Please do not think that your community does not need this type of assistance. Consider that the average emergency response time is about 12 minutes. That is 2 minutes after a cardiac arrest victim is beyond help. The small cost in supplying this technology to our schools will be returned in full and by the length of service of years to the community for each young life saved.

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate all my friends and colleagues who have worked on this legislation.

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

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin), chairman of the full committee.

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

I, too, want to mention the support from my colleague who just spoke, the gentlewoman from California (Mrs. Capps), who has really become a champion on a lot of health care-related items, and so when we get her on our team that is a good teammate to have, and I do appreciate that.

There is a health care crisis in America. There is a health care crisis in rural America. I think the point that 10 minutes, the response time being 12 minutes for the response time from most paramedics, 10 minutes is too short of a time. They cannot get there. That poses this need for this bill. That chain of survival, the E-911. We had the E-911 Caucus that helped us locate individuals, CPR, defibrillation and other life support measures.

This is an important bill and I appreciate the committee and my friends on the Democratic side for helping move this expeditiously to the floor. I ask my colleagues to support this bill.

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

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

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that I may be permitted to control the time of the gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Tauzin).

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

Mr. Speaker, Illinois and many other States have the ability to sign the back of their driver's license to give the gift of life, which is organ donation. That is in addition to the legislation that we have here on the floor today. I am pleased that the House is considering H.R. 399, the Organ Donation Improvement Act. This legislation builds on existing Department of Health and Human Services programs and encourages more Americans to give the gift of life.

Medical advances and the generosity of organ and tissue donors enable more than 22,000 Americans per year to receive organ transplants that save or enhance their lives. Despite their self-sacrifice and charity of these donors, this is only a small proportion of the more than 76,000 Americans who are now on the waiting list hoping to prolong their life by finding a matching donor.

Tragically, the number of patients waiting for organ transplants rose more than five times as fast as the number of transplant operations in the 1990s, according to an annual report by the United Network for Organ Sharing. As a result, about 5,500 people die in the United States each year, or 15 patients each day, while waiting for a donated heart, liver, kidney or other organ. It is estimated that every 16 minutes a new name is added to this growing waiting list.

As the demand for transplantation increases, the shortfall in organ donors for those with end-stage organ disease or organ failure will become even more pronounced. In order to narrow the gap between the supply and the increasing demand for donated organs, there must be an effort to encourage willing donors and create an environment conducive to organ donation.

H.R. 399 accomplishes this objective by permitting the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to make grants to States, transplant centers, qualified organ procurement organizations, or other public or private entities for the purpose of providing for the payment of travel and subsistence expenses incurred by individuals who are making living donations of their organs.

In addition, the bill requests the Secretary to carry out studies and demonstration projects for the purpose of educating the public with respect to organ donation. These grants will assist the States in carrying out organ donor awareness, public education, and outreach activities, programs designed to increase the number of organ donors within a State, including live donors.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) for his dedication in moving forward with this legislation. There is no greater gift than the gift of life. I also thank the gentleman from Louisiana (Chairman Tauzin) and my colleagues on the other side of the aisle who are very supportive of this legislation, and we were able to bring this up expeditiously.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

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