Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, throughout this year, House Republicans have been fighting for job creation, working to prevent the Federal Government from damaging our economy and job growth.

The present administration has tried to downplay the effect new regulations will have on companies struggling in the weak economy. Today's Wall Street Journal documents efforts of the White House Office on Information and Regulatory Affairs to muddy the waters about regulations.

The official Obama administration compilation of regulations ignores significant institutions such as the National Labor Relations Board and the Securities and Exchange Commission, yet the number of economically significant rules at all stages has risen to 149, a historic high.

Vast sections of industry are waiting to hear how the Federal Government will change the way they have to do business. How on earth can we expect them to hire new workers when they can't plan with this regulatory uncertainty?

The administration can try to manipulate the numbers, but there can be no doubt that the Federal regulatory juggernaut is holding back job growth.

Mr. Speaker, today the House will vote to extend critical provisions to help those seeking jobs, and we will do so without hurting job creators or adding to our national debt. Today's Tax Relief and Job Creation Act also extends the payroll tax holiday, preventing a tax increase on millions of Americans. I'm also very glad to see that we extend the doc fix for 2 years, preventing cuts that could lead many doctors to stop seeing Medicare patients. The bill also shows that the government doesn't have to spend money to create jobs; much of the time it just has to get out of the way.

The State Department has already declared that the planned route of the Keystone pipeline is the safest option, that the contractor is taking every safety precaution. We can see more than 120,000 jobs directly and indirectly created without a dime of taxpayer money.

Our bill proves that you don't need to raise taxes on some Americans to create jobs and provide essential benefits. We don't need to hurt job creators or add to future burdens in order to do the right thing.

Mr. Speaker, we are all well aware of the inadequacies of the sustainable growth rate formula as a payment policy for reimbursing physicians. Unfortunately, the greatest threat--arguably--facing the Medicare program, if not the entire health care system, was left out of the new health reform law.

In 2010, Congress passed five temporary fixes to a pending physician payment cut. Some were retroactive and some lasted mere weeks. In other words, Congress kicked the can down the road five times last year.

Physician practices need more certainty than week-to-week patches. When this legislation becomes law, it will be the first multiyear fix to Medicare physician rates since 2003. Instead of just addressing the next oncoming payment cliff, the Middle Class Tax Relief and Job Creation Act provides a level of stability and predictability in payments for providers not seen in years and will allow Congress and the administration to work together to develop a long-term answer to the Medicare sustainable growth rate.

This 2-year fix, with a 1 percent increase in the next 2 years, is the first step in a long-term solution to eliminate the SGR and develop a more equitable and affordable Medicare payment policy for physicians. Not voting for this and supporting this 2-year fix may leave physicians facing just a 1-year patch, or more kicking the can down the road with no plan on how to move forward.

I urge my colleagues to support this legislation.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to clause 1, rule I, I demand a vote on agreeing to the Speaker's approval of the Journal.

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

Madam Speaker, an article in last Monday's Weekly Standard reveals the systematic execution and harvesting of organs in China's prisons.

The article provides firsthand accounts of the targeted elimination of religious prisoners, prisoners of conscience, and political opponents of the regime. Minorities, including Falun Gong, Uyghurs, House Christians, and Tibetans have been executed, followed by organ transplant surgeries--some being performed while the victims are still alive, numbering in the tens of thousands.

Furthermore, foreign companies are already making investments to benefit off of the thriving organ transplant market. Pharmaceutical companies like Roche and Isotechnika Pharma have been involved in clinical drug testing of transplant patients. A British firm, TFP Ryder Healthcare, is proposing a medical facility that would include an organ transplant center.

Before they follow suit, U.S. companies must understand the unethical climate that exists in China. And our State Department and the U.N. must treat these actions as an abuse of China's international agreements and human rights of their own people.

[From WeeklyStandard.com, Dec. 5, 2011]

The Xinjiang Procedure

(By Ethan Gutmann)

To figure out what is taking place today in a closed

society such as northwest China, sometimes you have to go

back a decade, sometimes more.

One clue might be found on a hilltop near southern

Guangzhou, on a partly cloudy autumn day in 1991. A small

medical team and a young doctor starting a practice in

internal medicine had driven up from Sun Yat-sen Medical

University in a van modified for surgery. Pulling in on

bulldozed earth, they found a small fleet of similar

vehicles--clean, white, with smoked glass windows and

prominent red crosses on the side. The police had ordered the

medical team to stay inside for their safety. Indeed, the

view from the side window of lines of ditches--some filled

in, others freshly dug--suggested that the hilltop had served

as a killing ground for years.

Thirty-six scheduled executions would translate into 72

kidneys and corneas divided among the regional hospitals.

Every van contained surgeons who could work fast: 15-30

minutes to extract. Drive back to the hospital. Transplant

within six hours. Nothing fancy or experimental; execution

would probably ruin the heart.

With the acceleration of Chinese medical expertise over the

last decade, organs once considered scraps no longer went to

waste. It wasn't public knowledge exactly, but Chinese

medical schools taught that many otherwise wicked criminals

volunteered their organs as a final penance.

Right after the first shots the van door was thrust open

and two men with white surgical coats thrown over their

uniforms carried a body in, the head and feet still twitching

slightly. The young doctor noted that the wound was on the

right side of the chest as he had expected. When body #3 was

laid down, he went to work.

Male, 40-ish, Han Chinese. While the other retail organs in

the van were slated for the profitable foreigner market, the

doctor had seen the paperwork indicating this kidney was

tissue-matched for transplant into a 50-year-old Chinese man.

Without the transplant, that man would die. With it, the same

man would rise miraculously from his hospital bed and go on

to have a normal life for 25 years or so. By 2016, given all

the anti-tissue-rejection drug advances in China, they could

theoretically replace the liver, lungs, or heart--maybe buy

that man another 10 to 15 years.

Body #3 had no special characteristics save an angry purple

line on the neck. The doctor recognized the forensics.

Sometimes the police would twist a wire around a prisoner's

throat to prevent him from speaking up in court. The doctor

thought it through methodically. Maybe the police didn't want

this prisoner to talk because he had been a deranged killer,

a thug, or mentally unstable. After all, the Chinese penal

system was a daily sausage grinder, executing hardcore

criminals on a massive scale. Yes, the young doctor knew the

harvesting was wrong. Whatever crime had been committed, it

would be nice if the prisoner's body were allowed to rest

forever. Yet was his surgical task that different from an

obstetrician's? Harvesting was rebirth, harvesting was life,

as revolutionary an advance as antibiotics or steroids. Or

maybe, he thought, they didn't want this man to talk because

he was a political prisoner.

Nineteen years later, in a secure European location, the

doctor laid out the puzzle. He asked that I keep his identity

a secret. Chinese medical authorities admit that the lion's

share of transplant organs originate with executions, but no

mainland Chinese doctors, even in exile, will normally speak

of performing such surgery. To do so would remind

international medical authorities of an issue they would

rather avoid--not China's soaring execution rate or the

exploitation of criminal organs, but rather the systematic

elimination of China's religious and political prisoners. Yet

even if this doctor feared consequences to his family and his

career, he did not fear embarrassing China, for he was born

into an indigenous minority group, the Uighurs.

Every Uighur witness I approached over the course of two

years--police, medical, and security personnel scattered

across two continents--related compartmentalized fragments of

information to me, often through halting translation. They

acknowledged the risk to their careers, their families, and,

in several cases, their lives. Their testimony reveals not

just a procedure evolving to meet the lucrative medical

demand for living organs, but the genesis of a wider

atrocity.

Behind closed doors, the Uighurs call their vast region in

China's northwest corner (bordering on India, Pakistan,

Afghanistan, Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan, Kazakhstan, and

Mongolia) East Turkestan. The Uighurs are ethnically Turkic,

not East Asian. They are Muslims with a smattering of

Christians, and their language is more readily understood in

Tashkent than in Beijing. By contrast, Beijing's name for the

so-called Autonomous Region, Xinjiang, literally translates

as ``new frontier.'' When Mao invaded in 1949,

Han Chinese constituted only 7 percent of the regional

population. Following the flood of Communist party

administrators, soldiers, shopkeepers, and construction

corps, Han Chinese now constitute the majority. The party

calculates that Xinjiang will be its top oil and natural

gas production center by the end of this century.

To protect this investment, Beijing traditionally depicted

all Uighur nationalists--violent rebels and non-violent

activists alike--as CIA proxies. Shortly after 9/11, that

conspiracy theory was tossed down the memory hole. Suddenly

China was, and always has been, at war with al Qaeda-led

Uighur terrorists. No matter how transparently opportunistic

the switch, the American intelligence community saw an

opening for Chinese cooperation in the war on terror, and

signaled their acquiescence by allowing Chinese state

security personnel into Guantanamo to interrogate Uighur

detainees.

While it is difficult to know the strength of the claims of

the detainees' actual connections to al Qaeda, the basic

facts are these: During the 1990s, when the Chinese drove the

Uighur rebel training camps from neighboring countries such

as Kazakhstan and Pakistan, some Uighurs fled to Afghanistan

where a portion became Taliban soldiers. And yet, if the

Chinese government claims that the Uighurs constitute their

own Islamic fundamentalist problem, the fact is that I've

never met a Uighur woman who won't shake hands or a man who

won't have a drink with me. Nor does my Jewish-sounding name

appear to make anyone flinch. In one of those vino veritas

sessions, I asked a local Uighur leader if he was able to get

any sort of assistance from groups such as the Islamic Human

Rights Commission (where, as I found during a brief visit to

their London offices, veiled women flinch from an extended

male hand, drinks are forbidden, and my Jewish surname is a

very big deal indeed). ``Useless!'' he snorted, returning to

the vodka bottle.

So if Washington's goal is to promote a reformed China,

then taking Beijing's word for who is a terrorist is to play

into the party's hands.

Xinjiang has long served as the party's illicit laboratory:

from the atmospheric nuclear testing in Lop Nur in the mid-

sixties (resulting in a significant rise in cancers in

Urumqi, Xinjiang's capital) to the more recent creation in

the Tarim Desert of what could well be the world's largest

labor camp, estimated to hold 50,000 Uighurs, hardcore

criminals, and practitioners of Falun Gong. And when it comes

to the first organ harvesting of political prisoners,

Xinjiang was ground zero.

In 1989, not long after Nijat Abdureyimu turned 20, he

graduated from Xinjiang Police School and was assigned to a

special police force, Regiment No. 1 of the Urumqi Public

Security Bureau. As one of the first Uighurs in a Chinese

unit that specialized in ``social security''--essentially

squelching threats to the party--Nijat was employed as the

good cop in Uighur interrogations, particularly the high-

profile cases. I first met Nijat--thin, depressed, and

watchful--in a crowded refugee camp on the outskirts of Rome.

Nijat explained to me that he was well aware that his

Chinese colleagues kept him under constant surveillance. But

Nijat presented the image they liked: the little brother with

the guileless smile. By 1994 he had penetrated all of the

government's secret bastions: the detention center, its

interrogation rooms, and the killing grounds. Along the way,

he had witnessed his fair share of torture, executions, even

a rape. So his curiosity was in the nature of professional

interest when he questioned one of the Chinese cops who came

back from an execution shaking his head. According to his

colleague, it had been a normal procedure--the unwanted

bodies kicked into a trench, the useful corpses hoisted into

the harvesting vans, but then he heard something coming from

a van, like a man screaming.

``Like someone was still alive?'' Nijat remembers asking.

``What kind of screams?''

``Like from hell.''

Nijat shrugged. The regiment had more than enough

sloppiness to go around.

A few months later, three death row prisoners were being

transported from detention to execution. Nijat had become

friendly with one in particular, a very young man. As Nijat

walked alongside, the young man turned to Nijat with eyes

like saucers: ``Why did you inject me?''

Nijat hadn't injected him; the medical director had. But

the director and some legal officials were watching the

exchange, so Nijat lied smoothly: ``It's so you won't feel

much pain when they shoot you.''

The young man smiled faintly, and Nijat, sensing that he

would never quite forget that look, waited until the

execution was over to ask the medical director: ``Why did you

inject him?''

``Nijat, if you can transfer to some other section, then go

as soon as possible.''

``What do you mean? Doctor, exactly what kind of medicine

did you inject him with?'' ``Nijat, do you have any

beliefs?''

``Yes. Do you?''

``It was an anticoagulant, Nijat. And maybe we are all

going to hell.''

I first met Enver Tohti--a soft-spoken, husky, Buddha of a

man--through the informal Uighur network of London. I confess

that my first impression was that he was just another emigre

living in public housing. But Enver had a secret.

His story began on a Tuesday in June 1995, when he was a

general surgeon in an Urumqi hospital. Enver recalled an

unusual conversation with his immediate superior, the chief

surgeon: ``Enver, we are going to do something exciting. Have

you ever done an operation in the field?''

``Not really. What do you want me to do?''

``Get a mobile team together and request an ambulance. Have

everyone out front at nine tomorrow.''

On a cloudless Wednesday morning, Enver led two assistants

and an anaesthesiologist into an ambulance and followed the

chief surgeon's car out of Urumqi going west. The ambulance

had a picnic atmosphere until they realized they were

entering the Western Mountain police district, which

specialized in executing political dissidents. On a dirt road

by a steep hill the chief surgeon pulled off, and came back

to talk to Enver: ``When you hear a gunshot, drive around the

hill.''

``Can you tell us why we are here?''

``Enver, if you don't want to know, don't ask.''

``I want to know.''

``No. You don't want to know.''

The chief surgeon gave him a quick, hard look as he

returned to the car. Enver saw that beyond the hill there

appeared to be some sort of armed police facility. People

were milling about--civilians. Enver half-satirically

suggested to the team that perhaps they were family members

waiting to collect the body and pay for the bullet, and the

team responded with increasingly sick jokes to break the

tension. Then they heard a gunshot, possibly a volley, and

drove around to the execution field.

Focusing on not making any sudden moves as he followed the

chief surgeon's car, Enver never really did get a good look.

He briefly registered that there were 10, maybe 20 bodies

lying at the base of the hill, but the armed police saw the

ambulance and waved him over.

``This one. It's this one.''

Sprawled on the blood-soaked ground was a man, around 30,

dressed in navy blue overalls. All convicts were shaved, but

this one had long hair.

``That's him. We'll operate on him.''

``Why are we operating?'' Enver protested, feeling for the

artery in the man's neck. ``Come on. This man is dead.''

Enver stiffened and corrected himself. ``No. He's not

dead.''

``Operate then. Remove the liver and the kidneys. Now!

Quick! Be quick!''

Following the chief surgeon's directive, the team loaded

the body into the ambulance. Enver felt himself going numb:

Just cut the clothes off. Just strap the limbs to the table.

Just open the body. He kept making attempts to follow normal

procedure--sterilize, minimal exposure, sketch the cut. Enver

glanced questioningly at the chief surgeon. ``No

anaesthesia,'' said the chief surgeon. ``No life support.''

The anaesthesiologist just stood there, arms folded--like

some sort of ignorant peasant, Enver thought. Enver barked at

him. ``Why don't you do something?''

``What exactly should I do, Enver? He's already

unconscious. If you cut, he's not going to respond.''

But there was a response. As Enver's scalpel went in, the

man's chest heaved spasmodically and then curled back again.

Enver, a little frantic now, turned to the chief surgeon.

``How far in should I cut?''

``You cut as wide and deep as possible. We are working

against time.''

Enver worked fast, not bothering with clamps, cutting with

his right hand, moving muscle and soft tissue aside with his

left, slowing down only to make sure he excised the kidneys

and liver cleanly. Even as Enver stitched the man back up--

not internally, there was no point to that anymore, just so

the body might look presentable--he sensed the man was still

alive. I am a killer, Enver screamed inwardly. He did not

dare to look at the face again, just as he imagined a killer

would avoid looking at his victim.

The team drove back to Urumqi in silence.

On Thursday, the chief surgeon confronted Enver: ``So.

Yesterday. Did anything happen? Yesterday was a usual, normal

day. Yes?''

Enver said yes, and it took years for him to understand

that live organs had lower rejection rates in the new host,

or that the bullet to the chest had--other than that first

sickening lurch--acted like some sort of magical anaesthesia.

He had done what he could; he had stitched the body back

neatly for the family. And 15 years would elapse before Enver

revealed what had happened that Wednesday.

As for Nijat, it wasn't until 1996 that he put it together.

It happened just about midnight, well after the cell block

lights were turned off. Nijat found himself hanging out in

the detention compound's administrative office with the

medical director. Following a pause in the conversation, the

director, in an odd voice, asked Nijat if he thought the

place was haunted.

``Maybe it feels a little weird at night,'' Nijat answered.

``Why do you think that?''

``Because too many people have been killed here. And for

all the wrong reasons.''

Nijat finally understood. The anticoagulant. The expensive

``execution meals'' for the regiment following a trip to the

killing ground. The plainclothes agents in the cells who

persuaded the prisoners to sign statements donating their

organs to the state. And now the medical director was

confirming it all: Those statements were real. They just

didn't take account of the fact that the prisoners would

still be alive when they were cut up.

``Nijat, we really are going to hell.''

Nijat nodded, pulled on his beer, and didn't bother to

smile.

On February 2, 1997, Bahtiyar Shemshidin began wondering

whether he was a policeman in name only. Two years before,

the Chinese Public Security Bureau of the Western city of

Ghulja recruited Bahtiyar for the drug enforcement division.

It was a natural fit because Bahtiyar was tall, good-looking,

and exuded effortless Uighur authority. Bahtiyar would

ultimately make his way to Canada and freedom, but he had no

trouble recalling his initial idealism; back then, Bahtiyar

did not see himself as a Chinese collaborator but as an

emergency responder.

For several years, heroin addiction had been creeping

through the neighborhoods of Ghulja, striking down young

Uighurs like a medieval plague. Yet inside the force,

Bahtiyar quickly grasped that the Chinese heroin cartel was

quietly protected, if not encouraged, by the authorities.

Even his recruitment was a bait-and-switch. Instead of

sending him after drug dealers, his Chinese superiors ordered

him to investigate the Meshrep--a traditional Muslim get-

together promoting clean living, sports, and Uighur music and

dance. If the Meshrep had flowered like a traditional herbal

remedy against the opiate invader, the Chinese authorities

read it as a disguised attack on the Chinese state.

In early January 1997, on the eve of Ramadan, the entire

Ghulja police force--Uighurs and Chinese alike--were suddenly

ordered to surrender their guns ``for inspection.'' Now,

almost a month later, the weapons were being released. But

Bahtiyar's gun was held back. Bahtiyar went to the Chinese

bureaucrat who controlled supplies and asked after it. ``Your

gun has a problem,'' Bahtiyar was told.

``When will you fix the problem?''

The bureaucrat shrugged, glanced at his list, and looked up

at Bahtiyar with an unblinking stare that said: It is time

for you to go. By the end of the day, Bahtiyar got it: Every

Chinese officer had a gun. Every Uighur officer's gun had a

problem.

Three days later, Bahtiyar understood why. On February 5,

approximately 1,000 Uighurs gathered in the center of Ghulja.

The day before, the Chinese authorities arrested (and, it was

claimed, severely abused) six women, all Muslim teachers, all

participants in the Meshrep. The young men came without their

winter coats to show they were unarmed, but, planned or

unplanned, the Chinese police fired on the demonstrators.

Casualty counts of what is known as the Ghulja incident

remain shaky. Bahtiyar recalls internal police estimates of

400 dead, but he didn't see it; all Uighur policemen had been

sent to the local jail ``to interrogate prisoners'' and were

locked in the compound throughout the crisis. However,

Bahtiyar did see Uighurs herded into the compound and thrown

naked onto the snow--some bleeding, others with internal

injuries. Ghulja's main Uighur clinic was effectively shut

down when a squad of Chinese special police arrested 10 of

the doctors and destroyed the clinic's ambulance. As the

arrests mounted by late April, the jail became hopelessly

overcrowded, and Uighur political prisoners were selected for

daily executions. On April 24, Bahtiyar's colleagues

witnessed the killing of eight political prisoners; what

struck them was the presence of doctors in ``special vans for

harvesting organs.''

In Europe I spoke with a nurse who worked in a major Ghulja

hospital following the incident. Nervously requesting that I

provide no personal details, she told me that the hospitals

were forbidden to treat Uighur protesters. A doctor who

bandaged an arm received a 15-year sentence, while another

got 20 years, and hospital staff were told, ``If you treat

someone, you will get the same result.'' The separation

between the Uighur and Chinese medical personnel deepened:

Chinese doctors would stockpile prescriptions rather than

allow Uighur medical staff a key to the pharmacy, while

Uighur patients were receiving 50 percent of their usual

doses. If a Uighur couple had a second child, even if the

birth was legally sanctioned, Chinese maternity doctors, she

observed, administered an injection (described as an

antibiotic) to the infant. The nurse could not recall a

single instance of the same injection given to a Chinese

baby. Within three days the infant would turn blue and die.

Chinese staffers offered a rote explanation to Uighur

mothers: Your baby was too weak, your baby could not handle

the drug.

Shortly after the Ghulja incident, a young Uighur

protester's body returned home from a military hospital.

Perhaps the fact that the abdomen was stitched up was just

evidence of an autopsy, but it sparked another round of

riots. After that, the corpses were wrapped, buried at

gunpoint, and Chinese soldiers patrolled the cemeteries (one

is not far from the current Urumqi airport). By June, the

nurse was pulled into a new case: A young Uighur protester

had been arrested and beaten severely. His family paid for

his release, only to discover that their son had kidney

damage. The family was told to visit a Chinese military

hospital in Urumqi where the hospital staff laid it out: One

kidney, 30,000 RMB (roughly $4,700). The kidney will be

healthy, they were assured, because the transplant was to

come from a 21-year-old Uighur male--the same profile as

their son. The nurse learned that the ``donor'' was, in fact,

a protester.

In the early autumn of 1997, fresh out of a blood-work tour

in rural Xinjiang, a young Uighur doctor--let's call him

Murat--was pursuing a promising medical career in a large

Urumqi hospital. Two years later he was planning his escape

to Europe, where I met him some years after.

One day Murat's instructor quietly informed him that five

Chinese government officials--big guys, party members--had

checked into the hospital with organ problems. Now he had a

job for Murat: ``Go to the Urumqi prison. The political wing,

not the criminal side. Take blood samples. Small ones. Just

to map out the different blood types. That's all you have to

do.''

``What about tissue matching?''

``Don't worry about any of that, Murat. We'll handle that

later. Just map out the blood types.''

Clutching the authorization, and accompanied by an

assistant from the hospital, Murat, slight and bookish, found

himself facing approximately 15 prisoners, mostly tough-guy

Uighurs in their late twenties. As the first prisoner sat

down and saw the needle, the pleading began.

``You are a Uighur like me. Why are you going to hurt me?''

``I'm not going to hurt you. I'm just taking blood.''

At the word ``blood,'' everything collapsed. The men howled

and stampeded, the guards screaming and shoving them back

into line. The prisoner shrieked that he was innocent. The

Chinese guards grabbed his neck and squeezed it hard.

``It's just for your health,'' Murat said evenly, suddenly

aware the hospital functionary was probably watching to make

sure that Murat wasn't too sympathetic. ``It's just for your

health,'' Murat said again and again as he drew blood.

When Murat returned to the hospital, he asked the

instructor, ``Were all those prisoners sentenced to death?''

``That's right, Murat, that's right. Yes. Just don't ask

any more questions. They are bad people--enemies of the

country.''

But Murat kept asking questions, and over time, he learned

the drill. Once they found a matching blood type, they would

move to tissue matching. Then the political prisoner would

get a bullet to the right side of the chest. Murat's

instructor would visit the execution site to match up blood

samples. The officials would get their organs, rise from

their beds, and check out.

Six months later, around the first anniversary of Ghulja,

five new officials checked in. The instructor told Murat to

go back to the political wing for fresh blood. This time,

Murat was told that harvesting political prisoners was

normal. A growing export. High volume. The military hospitals

are leading the way.

By early 1999, Murat stopped hearing about harvesting

political prisoners. Perhaps it was over, he thought.

Yet the Xinjiang procedure spread. By the end of 1999, the

Uighur crackdown would be eclipsed by Chinese security's

largest-scale action since Mao: the elimination of Falun

Gong. By my estimate up to three million Falun Gong

practitioners would pass through the Chinese corrections

system. Approximately 65,000 would be harvested, hearts still

beating, before the 2008 Olympics. An unspecified,

significantly smaller, number of House Christians and

Tibetans likely met the same fate.

By Holocaust standards these are piddling numbers, so let's

be clear: China is not the land of the final solution. But it

is the land of the expedient solution. Some will point to

recent statements from the Chinese medical establishment

admitting the obvious--China's medical environment is not

fully ethical--and see progress. Foreign investors suspect

that eventually the Chinese might someday--or perhaps have

already--abandon organ harvesting in favor of the much more

lucrative pharmaceutical and clinical testing industries. The

problem with these soothing narratives is that reports, some

as recent as one year ago, suggest that the Chinese have not

abandoned the Xinjiang procedure.

In July 2009, Urumqi exploded in bloody street riots

between Uighurs and Han Chinese. The authorities massed

troops in the regional capital, kicked out the Western

journalists, shut down the Internet, and, over the next six

months, quietly, mostly at night, rounded up Uighur males by

the thousands. According to information leaked by Uighurs

held in captivity, some prisoners were given physical

examinations aimed solely at assessing the health of their

retail organs. The signals may be faint, but they are

consistent, and the conclusion is inescapable: China, a state

rapidly approaching superpower status, has not just committed

human rights abuses--that's old news--but has, for over a

decade, perverted the most trusted area of human expertise

into performing what is, in the legal parlance of human

rights, targeted elimination of a specific group.

Yet Nijat sits in refugee limbo in Neuchatel, Switzerland,

waiting for a country to offer him asylum. He confessed to

me. He confessed to others. But in a world eager not to

offend China, no state wants his confession. Enver made his

way to an obscure seminar hosted by the House of Commons on

Chinese human rights. When the MPs opened the floor to

questions, Enver found himself standing up and speaking, for

the first time, of killing a man. I took notes, but no

British MP or their staffers could be bothered to take

Enver's number.

The implications are clear enough. Nothing but self-

determination for the Uighurs

can suffice. The Uighurs, numbering 13 million, are few, but

they are also desperate. They may fight. War may come. On

that day, as diplomats across the globe call for dialogue

with Beijing, may every nation look to its origins and its

conscience. For my part, if my Jewish-sounding name tells me

anything, it is this: The dead may never be fully avenged,

but no people can accept being fatally exploited forever.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 1254) to amend the Controlled Substances Act to place synthetic drugs in Schedule I, as amended.

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

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

H.R. 1254 was introduced by my friend and colleague from Pennsylvania, Representative Charlie Dent, in response to a frightening trend of synthetic drug use in our communities. These synthetic drug substitutes, made from chemical compounds that are sold legally in most States, mimic the hallucinogenic and stimulant properties of drugs like marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamines. While these synthetic drugs are just as dangerous as their traditional counterparts, they are not illegal.

Many families and young people in our communities do not realize the destructiveness of these synthetic drugs because of their legal status and their

wide availability and often harmless-sounding names such as ``Bath Salts'' and ``Plant Food,'' both cocaine substitutes.

H.R. 1254 would, first, ban synthetic drugs that imitate marijuana, cocaine, and methamphetamines; and, second, allow the Drug Enforcement Administration to temporarily schedule a new substance for up to 3 years. Currently, DEA can only temporarily schedule a substance for up to 18 months.

I would like to thank Congressman Dent for working with the DEA on this important issue, and I would urge my colleagues to support this commonsense and bipartisanly supported legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I yield 5 minutes to the prime sponsor of the legislation, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent).

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentlelady from Florida, Congresswoman Sandy Adams, who was formerly in law enforcement.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Iowa, Congressman Tom Latham.

Mr. Speaker, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Pennsylvania, a former prosecutor, Congressman Pat Meehan.

Mr. Speaker, may I inquire how much time remains on each side?

I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Marino), a former prosecutor.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

I reserve the balance of my time.

I am prepared to close; so I continue to reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the prime sponsor of the bill, the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Dent).

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

Mr. Speaker, I am deeply concerned about the international community's recent trust in assurances that Burma is opening up to the world and becoming a true democracy in which the rights of all people in Burma are protected. There have been some positive steps taken recently by the dictators, however, until we see permanency in these changes, we would all do well to remain deeply cautious.

One important issue the Secretary of State addressed during her visit this week to Burma regarded the attacks by the dictatorship's troops against the ethnic minorities. It is vital, and I cannot emphasize this enough, that leaders of the various ethnic groups be included in any and all discussions, dialogue and decision about the future of Burma. I would call your attention to the call by the U.N. for a tri-partite dialogue--all three parties, the dictatorship, the democracy groups and the ethnic groups, must be included fully in all negotiations and agreements in order for true change to come to Burma. This is even more important when, during this visit and the recent ASEAN meetings, the dictatorship was violently attacking one or more ethnic groups.

A few years ago, I submitted a Statement for this Record describing the Advanced Light Helicopters that India sold to Burma. The dictators of Burma used these, plus other military hardware sold to them by a variety of nations against the ethnic minority civilian populations. The brutality of Burma's Generals against the ethnic minorities has not stopped, even during this time when they are allegedly making democratic reforms. Therefore, we as a democratic, free nation must be extremely careful of what the Generals are really up to--they haven't proven themselves trustworthy in the past.

I would like to submit for the Record, a short letter to the Secretary from Ms. Zipporah Sein, Secretary General of the Karen National Union.

I urge the Secretary of State, when engaging in further dialogues with the Burmese government, to proceed with the utmost caution.

Office of the Supreme Headquarters, Karen National Union,

Kawthoolei,

November 25, 2011.

Hon. Hillary Rodham Clinton,

Secretary of State,

Washington, DC.

Dear Madam Secretary: Thank you for your constant support

and encouragement for the people of Burma.

The leaders of the Karen National Union (KNU), welcome your

engagement with the government of Burma and your leadership

alongside Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to bring to the forefront the

need to see an end to the ongoing conflicts in the ethnic

states and an end to the oppression of all people inside

Burma.

We the KNU would like to ask you to take the lead to

recognize the desires of all the ethnic groups, both armed

and unarmed, to be treated as equals in the effort to

establish a genuine federal union: A union that recognizes

the rule of law and recognizes the equality of all.

We invite you to meet with ethnic leaders from all of the

ethnic organizations both armed and unarmed as we move

forward to work toward a peaceful and stable nation where our

citizens can truly be free from governmental oppression. We

need your help and your engagement with all of us.

Sincerely,

Zipporah Sein,

General Secretary, Karen National Union.

Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass the bill (H.R. 2405) to reauthorize certain provisions of the Public Health Service Act and the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act relating to public health preparedness and countermeasure development, and for other purposes, as amended.

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

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

H.R. 2405, introduced by my colleague Mike Rogers from Michigan, would reauthorize certain provisions of the Project Bioshield Act of 2004 and the Pandemic and All-Hazards Preparedness Act of 2006. These two laws help protect the United States against attacks from chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons.

Project Bioshield authorized funds for the purchase of medical countermeasures through the Special Reserve Fund and enabled the Secretary of Health and Human Services to authorize the emergency use of medical products. PAHPA created the Biodefense Advanced Research and Development Authority within HHS to help with the development of medical countermeasures and to ensure the communication between HHS and the developers of the medical countermeasures. PAHPA also created a position at HHS to lead the government's efforts on the chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear weapons preparedness and response, the Assistant Secretary for Preparedness and Response.

Some of these key provisions expired at the end of FY 2011. Since the terrorist attacks of 9/11, we have become more aware of the dangers our country faces and of the lengths to which some may go to inflict harm on us. These provisions must be reauthorized, so I would urge all Members to support this critical piece of legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Rogers), the prime sponsor of the legislation.

I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, I would tell the gentleman from New Jersey that I have no other speakers.

Mr. Speaker, this is good, bipartisan legislation. I would like to thank Mr. Pallone, Mr. Green, Mr. Waxman, along with our side of the aisle, for developing and helping move this bipartisan legislation. I urge my colleagues to support it, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Speaker, let's be perfectly clear: Our tax policy affects job growth.

When the Federal Government raises taxes, raises rates, or creates new taxes, businesses make decisions regarding their workforce. When the government takes more, businesses have to make due with less.

All told, last year's health care reform law will raise taxes by $800 billion over the next 10 years. One of the new taxes is a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices.

Michigan-based manufacturer Stryker recently announced that they will reduce their work force by 5 percent so that they will be prepared to pay this new tax beginning in 2013. Stryker is just one of the first to announce reductions in the layoffs.

In the next year, medical device companies will be faced with difficult decisions about where they will cut in

order to pay this massive new tax bill. Many will have no choice but to reduce the workforce.

We don't need a health reform law that destroys jobs; we need one that encourages the creation of good jobs with good benefits. We must repeal the so-called Affordable Care Act.

Mr. Speaker, today we begin debate on H.J. Res. 2, the balanced budget amendment. This resolution is similar to the amendment that nearly passed the Congress over 15 years ago. I can only imagine how much improved our current fiscal situation would be today if the amendment would have passed then. In that time, we have seen the national debt increase from just over $5 trillion then to more than $15 trillion now.

This rapid rise in public debt endangers our currency and creates deep economic uncertainty. For some of that time, we had a balanced budget; and we did it with a government divided between the political parties. It was not easy to negotiate, but we made it happen. We need to get back to balanced budgets and go further to pay down our debt. A balanced budget amendment will require us to take that action.

We cannot endlessly pile up debt. That is a recipe for disaster, and we have to turn things around. To help us accomplish that, we need a constitutional amendment ratified by the American people.

Madam Speaker, this is a tale of two jobs programs.

In the first, the government moves to put $500 million in loans in a private company. These loans are supposed to build a factory and create what the Vice President calls permanent jobs. The President tours their facilities, the Secretary of Energy lauds the company, top White House officials show an interest in the project, OMB worries are overruled, and the money is handed out. A year later, the company is bankrupt and all of the government money is lost.

In the second tale, a private company wants to build a pipeline that would create 20,000 jobs directly and a hundred thousand jobs indirectly. They don't need a single dime of government money. In fact, they're paying the bill for significant government environmental reviews of the project. Even though their project is declared safe by the State Department, they're ordered to perform another year of environmental studies.

Solyndra and Keystone XL--we have a White House that is eager to waste the public's money on one failing company but stands in the way of another company who doesn't need a dollar from the American taxpayer. Go figure.

Madam Speaker, while we have watched courageous democracy, human rights, and leaders of minorities stand up to thugs and extremists and demand a free and peaceful Egypt, deeply disturbing cases are occurring where the spotlight is not shining.

Reports indicate that on October 16, Ayman Labib was in his Arabic class when his teacher told him to get rid of the cross tattooed on his wrist. When Ayman said it was a tattoo, the teacher asked the other students, what are we going to do about this, and incited the students in the class to attack Ayman. He tried to flee, but ultimately the students, with the support of their teachers, murdered this young man.

Egyptian media, controlled by the military government, has tried to deny the sectarian reasons for this brutal murder. After the new anti- discrimination law put into place after October 9, when Egyptian security forces ran over Copts with bulldozers, will those teachers, adults and students be brought to justice for this brutal murder?

The Egyptian military must bring the perpetrators to justice. Otherwise, their tacit approval of this act will only bring further violence and bloodshed.

Mr. Speaker, earlier this week, The Washington Post uncovered astonishing evidence that political appointees at the Department of Health and Human Services meddled with a grant to help victims of human trafficking. For 5 years, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has provided these services. Now The Post has revealed that the grant renewal was denied over the objections of career staff and despite the recommendation of an independent review board that rated the Catholic program as the best agency to do the work. In fact, some career staff within HHS refused to sign the documents awarding the new grants. It cannot be a coincidence that the ACLU is suing to force the Catholic bishops to offer abortion services with this grant money.

It is outrageous that the administration appears to be letting the ACLU dictate policy and interfere with a grantee that is doing good work. Victims of trafficking will now face a reduced level of service because of political meddling.

A complaint has been referred to the HHS inspector general. I hope there will be a thorough investigation determining whether religious bigotry played a role in this grand decision.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that the proceedings had during the recess be printed in the Record.

Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may have 5 legislative days to revise and extend their remarks on H.R. 358 and to insert extraneous material on the bill.

Madam Speaker, pursuant to House Resolution 430, I call up the bill (H.R. 358) to amend the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to modify special rules relating to coverage of abortion services under such Act, and ask for its immediate consideration.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Madam Speaker, I am humbled to stand in this Chamber and engage in debate over such a critical matter as this. Like the civil rights movement, the pro-life cause has always been about one of securing rights for those who cannot speak for themselves and who cannot on their own obtain them. The fight goes all the way back to our Nation's beginning.

What more could our Founding Fathers have envisioned when they drafted the Declaration of Independence, proclaiming to all that America would ``hold these truths would be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness''? There it is.

The first unalienable right designated by the Declaration of Independence is our right to life. Our Founding Fathers must have deemed this an indispensable right, for its placement signifies it was not an afterthought.

From the start of our great Nation until now, countless men and women have fought and even sacrificed their own lives to protect that right for others. Yet, in 1973, the U.S. Supreme Court issued a decision that has

changed the course of history in this country. A right that had been protected for nearly 200 years was tossed aside by a court decision to legalize abortion. Up until that point, an unwanted pregnancy was likely to lead to an adoption, a process that placed an unwanted child in a caring home.

The legacy of the late Steve Jobs reminds us of the impact an adoption can have on the entire world. Fortunately for us, Jobs was born 18 years before Roe v. Wade. Shortly after his birth to a single mother, Jobs was adopted by a married couple in central California. He would go on to be the founder of a tech company that has literally changed the world. His was the route of many unexpected children before 1973.

Maya Angelou, Babe Ruth, and Eleanor Roosevelt are just a few of the many adoptees that have transformed the world we live in today.

Unfortunately, since Roe v. Wade, more and more women are being persuaded that abortion is nothing more than a simple medical procedure that will help them move on with their lives. This could not be further from the truth.

A study of Medi-Cal patients in California revealed that women who had had an abortion were 160 percent more likely to be admitted for psychiatric treatment than those who had carried the child to term and delivery. These women who chose to terminate their pregnancies then had to deal with the psychological devastation that is often associated with such a decision. Adding harm upon harm, abortion is a procedure that brings mental trauma to the mother and irreparable damage to the unborn.

Because of this, the policy of the Federal Government for the last 35 years has been to ban funding for such a procedure. Studies have shown that when the government subsidizes abortion, their number increases. The President, a supporter of abortion rights, has stated his commitment to reducing the amount of abortions in this country. Restoring the policy of prohibiting Federal funds for abortion would be a good first step. The American people, to a large degree, agree with this policy. In fact, as recently as last year, a survey revealed that 67 percent of Americans support a ban on abortion funding. But the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act failed to include this prohibition, and that is why we are here today.

President Obama indicated his support for upholding the ban on Federal funding for abortion in health reform, and that is exactly what the Protect Life Act does. The issue of prohibiting taxpayer funds for abortion is important to the American people. And so it should be important to Congress as well. Protecting the unalienable right to life is important to the American people. It should be to the Congress as well.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill, and I reserve the balance of my time.

Hon. Fred Upton,

Chairman, House Committee on Energy & Commerce, Washington,

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana, Dr. John Fleming.

I yield the gentleman an additional 30 seconds.

Madam Speaker, before I yield to the next speaker, I have a copy here of the PPACA law. On page 65, I'll just read one title of a paragraph: Abortions for which public funding is allowed.

At this time I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Louisiana, Steve Scalise.

I yield 1 minute to the distinguished vice chairman of the Health Subcommittee, the gentleman from Texas, Dr. Burgess.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to another distinguished member of the Health Subcommittee, the gentleman from Georgia, Dr. Phil Gingrey.

Madam Speaker, at this time I yield 1 minute to the gentlelady from Missouri (Mrs. Hartzler).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Tennessee (Mrs. Black).

I yield the gentlelady an additional 15 seconds.

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to another leader on the life issue, the gentleman from Iowa (Mr. King).

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 1 minute to another eloquent voice for the unborn, the chair of the Pro-Life Women's Caucus, the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Schmidt).

Madam Speaker, at this time I yield 1 minute to another outstanding voice for the unborn, the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence).

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

Madam Speaker, before I yield to the next gentleman, in response to the gentlelady, the House has passed 12 different jobs bills already. I believe the gentlelady has voted against every one. They're sitting in the Senate waiting for action.

I would like to yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Arizona, another leader in the pro-life movement, Mr. Franks.

Madam Speaker, at this time I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Austria).

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

Madam Speaker, just to correct the gentlelady, there were three Stupak-Pitts amendments. Two were adopted in committee and one on the floor, which got the most publicity. When they went to the Senate, they were all taken out. We're going back to the original Stupak-Pitts amendments.

With that, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Huizenga).

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to another outstanding voice for the unborn, one of our freshmen from Oklahoma (Mr. Lankford).

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

At this time I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Texas (Mr. Neugebauer).

Madam Speaker, I am pleased to yield 2 minutes to one of the outstanding pro-life leaders in this House, a pro-life Democrat, my cosponsor of the Protect Life Act, the gentleman from Illinois, Dan Lipinski.

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from New Mexico (Mr. Pearce).

I yield 1 minute to the distinguished gentleman from Louisiana (Mr. Landry).

Madam Speaker, at this time I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Huelskamp).

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

Madam Speaker, I yield 1 minute to the distinguished chairman of the Pro-Life Caucus, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Smith).

(Mr. SMITH of New Jersey asked and was given permission to revise and extend his remarks.)

We have two additional speakers.

At this time I yield 1 minute to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Aderholt).

Madam Speaker, I yield the balance of my time to the gentleman from Texas, Dr. Burgess.

Madam Speaker, I claim time in opposition to the motion.

Madam Speaker, a vast majority of Americans, regardless of whether they support or oppose abortion being legal, believe that the Federal Government should not be subsidizing abortions. Some on the other side are bringing up a red herring in an attempt to continue to allow Federal funding of abortion.

To dispel the myths being disseminated by opponents of H.R. 358, every Member should understand that this bill would not change the Hyde amendment, the EMTALA statute, or the standard of care required of providers under the EMTALA law. Section 1867(e) of the Social Security Act, commonly known as EMTALA, calls on emergency personnel to respond to distress on the part of a pregnant woman or her unborn child by stabilizing the condition of both mother and the unborn child.

It is ironic that opponents of H.R. 358 claim it will establish an objectionable standard of care when that balanced standard has long been recognized under EMTALA.

My colleagues, the question before us today is simple: If you favor federally funded abortion coverage, then you should support the motion to recommit and oppose the bill. If you believe, like a majority of Americans, that the Federal Government should not be subsidizing abortion, then you should oppose the motion to recommit and support