Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in strong support of this WRRDA bill. The bill provides the much-needed oversight of the Army Corps of Engineers, streamlines the environmental review process, and consolidates duplicative analyses of projects that have delayed important infrastructure improvements, sometimes for as long as 15 years. These types of delays have cost our economy billions of dollars and have put the United States at a competitive disadvantage.

I am also pleased that this bill will provide additional funding for smaller ports, like in Mount Vernon, Indiana. The Mount Vernon Port has several businesses headquartered on its property and is vitally important to the economy of southwest Indiana. A functioning water transportation system is critical for their success now and in the future.

I would like to thank Chairman Shuster, Ranking Member Rahall, Subcommittee Chairman Gibbs, and Subcommittee Ranking Member Bishop for working together on this important piece of legislation that makes government work better for our taxpayers.

I urge my colleagues to support this bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to congratulate the Rose- Hulman Institute of Technology on their number one ranking as the top undergraduate engineering school in the Nation. This is the 15th consecutive year for this honor by the U.S. News and World Report in the category of engineering schools whose highest degree is a bachelor's or master's degree.

Founded in 1874 and located in Terre Haute, Indiana, Rose-Hulman successfully delivers the world's best undergraduate science, engineering, and mathematics education in an environment of individual attention and support.

I commend Rose-Hulman for their excellent leadership and dedication and thank them for the important role they play as a world leader in the education of the STEM workforce of the future.

Mr. Speaker, this legislation is simple, but has the potential to save the trucking industry nearly $1 billion.

If the Department of Transportation--specifically the Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration--decides they want to weigh in on sleep apnea, they need to do so by a rulemaking process.

On April 20, 2012, FMCSA published a Federal Register notice that stated FMCSA was going to publish regulatory guidance related to sleep apnea. Subsequently, as has been mentioned, they decided to go through the rulemaking process. But I still believe this bill is necessary to codify that position into law and give the opinion of Congress to FMCSA on this issue.

The problem with issuing guidance instead of traditional rulemaking is that guidance is nonbinding and open to interpretation. When somebody with a commercial driver's license goes to a physician to get a physical, the doctor can follow the guidance and recommend a sleep apnea test. Sleep apnea tests cost thousands of dollars, and the cost would be shifted to the employer of the driver, or if they are an independent driver, to themselves. If the doctor chose to ignore the guidance, they would be open to possible legal actions.

I know from experience that most physicians already practice defensive medicine, and any guidance related to this issue would only drive up the cost of medicine and hurt an industry that is already facing high unemployment.

The American Trucking Association has estimated that nearly one-third of their drivers would meet the arbitrary body mass index threshold. That would be an estimated 1 million drivers getting a sleep apnea test at an average cost of $2,265. The total cost just to the American Trucking Association members would be estimated between $900 million and $1.2 billion. The School Bus

Association estimates that this regulation would cost their drivers $100 million.

Sleep apnea is a serious disease that can't be diagnosed arbitrarily by guidance set in Washington, D.C. The Department needs to go through the rulemaking process--which, again, they've already agreed to do. This would allow a cost-benefit analysis and input from medical providers and all of the stakeholders involved in this issue.

I'm proud that the bill passed out of the Transportation Committee with unanimous support and had over 68 bipartisan cosponsors. The American Trucking Associations, the American Bus Association, the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, the National School Transportation Association, Owner-Operator Independent Drivers Association, and the United Motorcoach Association have all endorsed

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commemorate the homecoming of the WWII naval vessel, the LST-325, to Evansville, Indiana. The Evansville shipyard has a proud history of manufacturing Landing Ship, Tank vessels for use in WWII. These ships were designed to land battle ready tanks, vehicles, soldiers, and supplies directly onto enemy beaches.

The LST-325 was launched on Oct. 27, 1942 and commissioned on February 1, 1943, and, most notably, participated in D-Day at Omaha Beach, Normandy.

Today, I am honored to welcome home such an important piece of American history. The LST-325 has been a part of the Evansville community for the past eight years, and we look forward to welcoming it home for many years to come.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent my name be removed as cosponsor on H.R. 2918.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that when the House adjourns today, it adjourn to meet at 9 a.m. tomorrow.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of this legislation.

Every single coal mine in the State of Indiana is in my congressional district. Coal not only provides thousands of jobs for Hoosiers, but provides over 90 percent of our State's energy. Coal is a vital part of Indiana's economy, helping to keep energy prices low and supporting a robust manufacturing sector.

I disagree with the EPA's position that coal ash should be treated as a hazardous material. Coal ash has been used in all kinds of other materials like concrete and has been proven safe when used correctly and when stored correctly. In fact, the EPA's own studies, as has also been mentioned, in 1993 and 2000 have stated that coal ash is not a hazardous material. This legislation allows States to establish their own regulations for managing coal ash as long as it meets minimum Federal standards.

Coal is necessary for an all-of-the-above energy plan and is vital to our Nation's energy production that sustains good-paying jobs, and I urge all of my colleagues to support this legislation.

Mr. Chair, I rise today in support of H.R. 5, the Student Success Act, because our Nation's students deserve better in the classroom.

The one-size-fits-all approach and expanding Federal role in our current system is not effectively serving our students. The Student Success Act corrects this problem by allowing States the freedom and flexibility to provide a better education to all their students, an education that is tailored to their students' needs.

This bill reduces the Federal footprint in our schools and restores control to State and local communities where education decisions should be made. We ensure that parents and schoolteachers are able to make decisions about what is best for their students.

Mr. Chair, as the father of four, it is very important to me that we provide the best educational opportunities for all children, regardless of where they live or their socioeconomic status. The Student Success Act accomplishes this goal.

Mr. Speaker, I was a practicing physician for 15 years, and I rise today to support the rule and support delaying the Affordable Care Act's employer and individual mandates. I support these delays because it's unfair to employees in my district who have suffered lost wages and lost hours at work because of these mandates:

the 54 employees in the Greencastle, Indiana, school district who had their hours cut from full time to part time;

the 150 employees in the Washington/Greene County school district who had their hours cut from full time to part time;

the Spencer County employees who saw their hours cut from 40 hours a week to 28 hours a week;

Wolfe's Auto Auction in Terre Haute, which I recently visited, that has had to cut many employees from full to part time.

There are countless other middle-class Hoosiers who are suffering across Indiana because of these mandates. They're schoolbus drivers, teachers, hospital nurses, and county government employees. Hoosiers work hard every day to provide for their families. Rather than helping them, the government is keeping them from doing it.

This administration would like everybody to believe the economy is growing and over 700,000 jobs were recently created. They failed to mention that 500,000 of those jobs were part time. It's hard to find a full-time job when the government penalizes your employer for giving you more than 30 hours of work.

We talk a lot in this body about how we need to help everyone in these difficult economic times. Yet my colleagues have supported legislation that they know has compromised the opportunity to find a good-paying job and provide for your family. But they stand here and argue that that has not been the case.

A 1-year delay to these mandates is just a Band-Aid. I'll be voting in favor of the rule and the bill. Ultimately, we need to fully repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize a milestone in the history of St. Mary-of-the-Woods College, located in my district.

As an early leader in distance learning, St. Mary-of-the-Woods College is celebrating its 40th anniversary of providing quality distance education for students across the Nation.

The program began with the bold vision of Sister Jeanne Knoerle, then-president of the college, as a way to educate women who needed a nontraditional way to earn a college degree and was expanded in 2005 to provide access to men. Known today as Woods Online, it is one of the largest online degree programs in Indiana. More than 800 students are currently enrolled in the program from 33 States and across the globe.

I would like to congratulate St. Mary-of-the-Woods College on the longevity of this program and thank them for their innovative efforts in offering a nontraditional means for students to achieve their educational goals.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to discuss ObamaCare's assault on jobs and full-time employment. The law is costing wages that are important to families in these tough economic times.

I received an email from a constituent in my district who is a teacher's assistant. Because of the 30 hours that is considered full- time employment in the Affordable Care Act, her hours have been cut to 28 hours a week, along with all of her colleagues. She stated:

I don't even need health insurance, I get it through my

husband's employment. But because of this bill, I will be

losing money that my family needs and depends on.

Indiana is also home to over 300 medical device companies, with an economic impact of over $10 billion a year. Companies in Indiana, like Cook Medical, have already scrapped plans for expansion in the State, citing the 2.3 percent medical device tax.

Yesterday, I discussed with Secretary Sebelius the vote in the Senate, 79-20, and the vote in the last House Congress, 270-146-- including 37 Democrats--to repeal the law, but the administration sticks by the fact that they do not want that part of the law repealed.

Mr. Speaker, this administration has been telling Americans for the last 5 years that they are trying to create jobs, but they're refusing to acknowledge the jobs that are being lost because of their health care bill.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to honor a man with considerable ties to the 8th District of Indiana and the first President of the State of Israel, Chaim Weizmann.

Weizmann was born in Poland in 1874 and became an accomplished chemist. While lecturing in England in 1916 he was asked by Winston Churchill to help Britain meet its acetone shortage.

In an effort to meet this request, Weizmann created a new process of acetone production through the fermentation process, which came to be known as the Weizmann Process and greatly outpaced previous production processes. As a physician with a strong background in organic chemistry, I can appreciate this work.

This breakthrough led to the issuance of U.S. Patent on the Weizmann Process, and in 1917 Weizmann established his first U.S. acetone plant on the Wabash River in Terre Haute, Indiana, a city in my home district.

The profits from his Terre Haute plant, Commercial Solvents Corporation, ultimately aided Weizmann in realizing his dream of establishing the State of Israel.

I am glad to honor President Weizmann for his contributions to the establishment of the State of Israel and to the 8th Congressional District of Indiana.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in strong opposition to ObamaCare for the reasons we've heard already here today. However, I would like to explain how this ``train wreck'' is affecting Indiana and costing good-paying Hoosier jobs.

Indiana is home to over 300 medical device companies, creating over 54,800 jobs that pay an average salary of $59,706 per year, and the medical device industry provides $50 billion to Indiana's economy.

Companies have already decided not to expand and many across the country have announced layoffs. The device tax is so dangerous that our friends in the U.S. Senate voted recently 79-20 to repeal the medical device tax, and last Congress the House voted in a bipartisan manner to repeal the tax.

Yet we've heard from the White House that the President doesn't support repeal because they need the money to support ObamaCare. This tax is a job killer and stifles innovation. It must be repealed.

ObamaCare is full of these types of examples. This near government takeover of our Nation's health care system is riddled with more taxes, burdensome regulations, and unintended consequences that are costing jobs and compromising the quality of health care available to Americans. Not to mention many full-time employees are being cut back to part time so that employers can comply with all the requirements of the law. My constituents are telling me that this is happening as we speak back in Indiana.

Before coming to the House, I practiced medicine for 15 years. That experience tells me that this law fails to help patients get access to quality, affordable health care, prevents businesses from expanding, and is not helping us create much needed jobs.

It also puts government bureaucrats between the patient and their doctor--government bureaucrats in an agency that is intrusive, untrustworthy and targeting American citizens based on politics. Yes, Madam Speaker, ObamaCare vastly expands the IRS and is dependent on the agency for its implementation. That's why I'm proud to stand here today with my colleagues to support our Nation's patients by voting to repeal this disastrous law so we can replace it with commonsense, patient- centered reforms.

Thank you, Dr. Roe, for yielding. It's great to be here with many members of the Doctors' Caucus and again remember the focus of what we are trying to do here is focusing on the patient, what's best for the American people and our patients.

It's already been quoted a number of times today--I've got a couple other quotes. Senator Schumer also said:

The Affordable Care Act could cause rates to go through the

roof.

That's exactly what we are seeing in the private health insurance. I won't repeat Senator Baucus' statement about a train wreck. But Senator Rockefeller also said:

It's so complicated, and if it isn't done right the first

time and it's not being done at all, it will just simply get

worse.

What I'm going to focus on now and the rest of the time is what this means to employers and people that have employer-provided health insurance and what this law is going to do to employers.

Let me focus on first what the city of Long Beach, California, just came out and said recently. They are going to be limiting most of their 1,600 part-time employees to fewer than 27 hours a week on average. So these are employees that had a 40-hour workweek and now they are being cut to less than 40 hours to comply with the law.

You say, Why would that happen? Well, because city officials say that without cutting payroll hours, new health care benefits would cost up to $2 million more next year and that expense would trigger layoffs and cutbacks in city services. This is a city in southern California. This isn't an isolated event.

Regal Entertainment Group, the Nation's largest movie theater chain, with over 500 movie theaters operating in 38 States, recently said they plan to cut many nonsalaried employees back to part-time to comply with ObamaCare.

In a memo to company managers, Regal stated:

To comply with the Affordable Care Act, Regal had to

increase our health care budget to cover those newly deemed

eligible, based on the law's definition of full-time

employee, which is 30 hours or above. To manage this budget,

all other employees will be scheduled in accord with business

needs in a manner that will not negatively impact our health

care budget.

That needs a translation. The translation is: everybody is getting cut back to less than 30 hours, and they are going to see their income dramatically drop.

There are other examples. The State of Virginia, Palm Beach State College in Florida, and CKE Restaurants, among others.

I have an example in my district. We got an email the other day. A constituent said she and 52 other employees at a school district in my district in Indiana were recently informed that their hours will be cut to 28 hours a week because the school can't afford to comply with the health care law.

Municipal government officials are telling me, city government officials are telling me in my district this may hit city government, municipal government, county government, and school districts. This is just people being cut.

Now, let's talk about people losing their health insurance. Here's a chart right here that says we were promised that everybody could keep their health insurance. Here are some, what I consider, conservative estimates of the number of Americans who are going to lose their health insurance after full implementation of the law.

Why is that? Well, because I talk to small business owners all the time who have more than 50 employees. I talked to one young man who has been very successful in starting a business and creating jobs. He says, Not only will I probably not be able to afford it and have to just pay the penalty rather than complying with the law, but I don't know a small business owner that I've spoken to--this is his words--that is not going to pay the penalty and not going to jettison their employee- provided health insurance.

All of those employees are going to be forced to go to these State- based exchanges, which aren't set up and which are going to cost more. The gentleman

from Maryland just talked about that about half an hour ago. People aren't even going to be able to afford it, so employer-provided health insurance is going out the window.

I think estimates like this are very conservative, according to the people that I've talked to.

I yield to the gentleman from Tennessee.

I practice in southern Indiana where I get patients from southern Illinois, northern Kentucky, and southern Indiana. Every year, the Illinois Medicaid system ran out of money before the end of the year, September-October. They just ran out of money. No money for their Medicaid population.

This is exactly what you are talking about, Dr. Roe, is that a system that is already broken and we are going to expand it. And what it's going to do is, like Dr. Fleming said, put a card in your pocket that says you have health insurance, but you don't have access to health care providers, except guess where. Through the emergency room, which is one of the biggest problems we are already trying to defeat.

They don't.

I would agree with that. And let me tell you, there are some things that we could have agreed on that we could have made some advances on in health care reform. Preexisting conditions, all of us agree.

I had a patient that had Hodgkin's disease when he was in his twenties. He worked his entire life. He is now in his fifties. He needed bypass surgery. He was never able to get health insurance the whole time because of a preexisting condition. That's just wrong.

I yield to the gentleman from Louisiana.

Let me add a few final comments.

Again, on the things that we can agree on, many of us agree on children up to age 25 or 26. A lot of us agree that we need to look at finding ways to expand the affordability of health care. Remember, this was supposed to bring down the costs. There are a lot of things that could be done to bring down the costs. There are a lot of things we could have agreed on, Dr. Roe, if we would have just worked together and not put in, what I would consider, a near government takeover of the entire system.

I've been a practicing physician for 15 years, and if I count my residency, it's more than that. Imagine if you're out there as a physician today and you have to look a patient in the eye and you have to tell him, Well, I'm sorry. The IPAB told me that this is not statistically something that we can provide because, based on statistics calculated in Washington, D.C., it's not cost-effective for the Medicare system to provide this service anymore.

This is going to happen, and I hope we all wake up in America and realize that it will happen. This happens in other countries that have government insurance. The Canadian system could not exist if it did not sit next to the United States. It's two-tiered. People come to the United States, if they have money, to get health care in a timely manner. The same thing is true in England. If you have money, you get private health insurance. If you don't, you wait for months. So this is bad for patients, and it's bad for business. There are things we could have done. It's a shame that we didn't and that we weren't consulted.

With that, I want to thank the gentleman from Tennessee for this hour to talk about this.

Mr. Speaker, I'm here to comment on the administration playing politics in an attempt to maximize the impact of his sequester on the American people and, in this case, the aviation system and the traveling public.

The FAA's operating budget has grown by nearly 110 percent, more than double in the last 17 years, as domestic flights are down 27 percent. The FAA's share of the sequester represents $600 million of their $16 billion annual budget, about 5 percent.

Does anyone out there believe a Federal Government bureaucracy can't find this level of savings without affecting the American people? Well, I don't.

Rather than furloughing air traffic controllers to make a political point, the FAA should cut wasteful and unnecessary spending.

Mr. Speaker, these cuts should not significantly impact the aviation system, but the administration is failing to show leadership and is trying to score political points.