Floor Statements

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman from New York for not only sponsoring this, but yielding me the time.

I rise in support of this amendment as a coauthor, cosponsor of this important amendment. What this amendment does is it restores $35 million to help States combat childhood lead poisoning.

I happen to represent a district where a significant geographical portion has been declared a Superfund site because of lead contamination. Although the lead contamination in the soil is a different issue and a different agency, the reality is one agency, EPA, cleans up the yards from lead contamination. What they are finding is that part of the contamination is also from the lead-based paint from the outside or exterior of the home. At the same time, we have the lead paint interior issues in these older, poorer parts of my city. So what happens is we clean up one area and leave other contaminated areas. It makes sense that we do a more holistic approach and clean up lead paint at the same time in those homes.

But, unfortunately, the fund that deals with the lead paint for houses has been cut. This program has already fallen from a previous level of $175 million in fiscal year 2003. This appropriations bill under consideration today would further cut the funding from $150 million in fiscal year 2006 to about $115 million in fiscal year 2007. I realize the budget is tight, and we try to take this out of the administrative salary side so we don't have to take it out of the programs that Mr. Sweeney had referenced.

This is important to the health and safety of children in many inner- city urban areas, and I respectfully request my colleagues support this amendment.

Mr. Speaker, today I want to call attention to an important event occurring in my district and recognize the two programs giving rise to this event, which have had a tremendous impact on the health care of underserved populations in our country. Beginning June 10 and continuing through June 14, the Nebraska Area Health Education program and the University of Nebraska Medical Center are sponsoring the National Area Health Education Center Organization's (NAO) annual meeting in my district in Omaha, Nebraska. I want to use the opportunity of the national meeting to illustrate the importance of Area Health Education Centers (AHECs) and Health Education Training Centers (HETCs) through the many services and programs they offer.

Area Health Education Centers, established by Congress in 1971, are academic-community partnerships that train health care providers at sites and in programs that are responsive to state and local needs. AHECs improve the supply, distribution, diversity and quality of the health workforce and increase access to health care in medically underserved areas. Furthermore, AHECs facilitate coordination of the resources of health science centers with local educational and clinical resources, which in turn establishes a network that provides multi- disciplinary educational services to students, faculty, and practitioners.

Health Education Training Centers, established in 1989, provide community health education and health professions training programs in areas of the United States with severely underserved populations, such as border states. Together, AHEC and HETC programs recruit, train, and retain health professionals committed to serving underserved populations and provide community programs for specific populations with severe unmet health needs. Across the country, there are 61 AHEC/ HETC programs and 215 affiliated AHEC centers that collaborate with over 120 medical schools and 600 nursing and allied health schools to improve the health of the underserved.

As reported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, in a typical year, AHECs alone will train 37,000 health professions students in community-based sites, provide health career enhancement and recruitment activities of 20 hours or more to 42,000 high school students, and provide continuing education to 315,000 health care providers. In FY 2005, nearly 10,000 physicians participated in mentoring and training activities to students in community sites. Also, AHEC/HETCs were credited with providing training in medically underserved communities to over 47,000 health professions students.

Recent studies and reports express serious concern regarding the current and predicted shortage of health care professionals across the country, which further illustrates the important work of AHEC/HETCs. In 2005, AHECs/HETCs were successful in introducing health careers to 300,000 students ranging from kindergarten through college.

Mr. Speaker, AHEC/HETC programs serve many important purposes with respect to the recruitment, retention, education and training of health professionals in underserved areas. Today, I would like to fully recognize, appreciate and honor the efforts and activities of AHEC/HETC programs and centers throughout the United States in addressing the nation's most critical health care and health care access issues. I hope my colleagues will join me in commending all the participants in Omaha on the occasion of their national meeting, and thanking them for their service to our country.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today to highlight the importance of the Byrne Justice Assistance Grant program.

The White House again proposed eliminating this critical asset in the war on drugs. That would be a tremendous mistake. Congress must protect this funding to address the clear and present danger of meth in our communities.

In my home state of Nebraska, 60 percent of prison inmates are serving time for meth-related crimes. State social services programs are overwhelmed by the rising number of children coming from meth homes. The number of babies born addicted to meth is an unspeakable tragedy.

Each day, our dedicated law enforcement officers put their lives on the line to rescue families and communities from the scourge of meth. Anything less than full funding of Byrne-JAG would break faith with those who risk their lives to keep meth off our streets and away from our children.

In Nebraska, Byrne task forces were responsible for 5,500 drug arrests last year. Nationwide, Byrne task forces seized 5,600 meth labs, 55,000 weapons, and massive quantities of narcotics, including 2.7 million grams of meth.

The results of Byrne task forces are real, they are quantifiable, they are defensible, and they demonstrate the power of using federal dollars to leverage state and local investment in public safety.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, my amendment tries to protect one of America's greatest assets, and that is its intellectual properties, its creativity that has been trademarked.

Unfortunately, there have been incidents where U.S. tax dollars have been provided to various agencies outside of the borders who have used those taxpayer dollars to solicit the help from organizations or companies that have usurped America's trademarks or intellectual properties.

This amendment is simple. It ensures that the foreign assistance dollars are not used to support the importation of counterfeit goods and services. This amendment is a modification of a bill of which Mr. Tiahrt and I have authored, which has bipartisan support of 29 of my colleagues.

By the way, I will say that the major impetus of this bill is with the Gallup Organization, partly headquartered in my district, whose pooling is world renowned, but yet its trade name has been usurped for various purposes in parts of the world of which U.S. tax dollars unfortunately have gone to support.

So this is our effort.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Kansas (Mr. Tiahrt).

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Kansas.

Mr. Chairman, I yield to the gentleman from Arizona, the great chairman.

Reclaiming my time, I want to thank the chairman for those comments and pointing out the steps that have been taken. Those are reassuring. I thank you for accepting the amendment.

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

Mr. Chairman, the interesting irony about this is that the bill, as written, does not regulate or tamper or mess with anything on the Internet. The amendment that we are discussing here is the regulation of the Internet. And I agree with the Speaker beforehand. There is not an issue today on prioritization along the network or through the pipelines.

I look at it like, this amendment, if it was brought up 100 years ago, would have froze the Pony Express into that permanent state. But yet, we all know that later on developed first class mail, airplane, FedEx, UPS and a variety of different ways to deliver to the consumer. I say, let's wait until there is a discriminatory process that is put in place, that is anti-consumer and trying

to guess that something that, we don't know what, may happen in the future. Let's not regulate the Internet today. Let's defeat this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank the sponsors of this amendment for bringing this forward today, because it is relevant. I agree with the chairman of our committee that the universal service is built on a 1920s or 1930s model, and it is outdated and in need of reform.

I also believe that universal service is as relevant today as it was back then, and maybe even more so. In modernizing universal service so that all people in America can enjoy the services of telephony and its advanced services, broadband, we need to fix universal service.

And one of the areas that we need to fix is that as different technology or VoIP emerges, then companies use this digital process to avoid paying into the universal service, therefore strangling it. This is just one piece of the universal service puzzle. I support these efforts to fix this little piece today and also look forward to working on the total reform of universal service and modernizing it.

Offered By: Mr. Terry

Amendment No. 12: At the end of the bill (before the short

title), insert the following:

limitation on funds

Sec. 5xx. None of the funds made available in this Act may

be used in contravention of section 2320(a) of title 18,

United States Code.

Madam Speaker, I rise in support of our Speaker, Denny Hastert, a gentleman whom I wholeheartedly trust and believe that he is one of the most ethical stand-up people I have ever met in my life. And most of us know that around here, and that is why a story about his being investigated is so unbelievable that it should not run.

Now, in Washington when a Speaker has criticized an action of the Justice Department on a constitutional ground, I guess we should not be surprised that there is retaliation from those that have been criticized. But let us realize what that is: retaliation.

Now, what frustrates me even more or frightens me even more than retaliation by an executive agency like this is the fact that a news station so desirous of bringing down Washington, DC and the representatives here would run a false story about an investigation on the Speaker when the Justice Department said there is no investigation. This noncredible journalism, I think, degrades freedom of speech and the reputation of journalists.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Indiana and probably the leader in Congress in helping fight our war against drugs in our communities across this Nation.

I stand with my colleagues here in discussing a problem in our towns and our neighborhoods, particularly in Nebraska, and it is methamphetamines. Also, our teenagers are experimenting with prescription drugs where they can get a hold of them.

It is our police officers and our sheriffs and then our State patrol that are on the front lines. It was they 2 years ago who were telling me that some of the gangs in Omaha that had cocaine or marijuana were changing their product of distribution away from those drugs to crystal meth made in Mexico.

Mr. Souder held a hearing with Mr. Walters a year ago, who was really, I am not exaggerating here, flabbergasted that some of the grant moneys that the administration had zeroed out was actually being used for task forces against methamphetamines and these gangs, and yet my police department knew about it 2 years ago.

I know that this amendment that I have drafted sounds almost nonsensical in its common sense. Why would the national director of our drug policy not be communicating with local police officers who are our front line in this battle? But the reality is they have detached themselves and are advancing a policy to move all of this over to the Justice Department where there will be even less communication with those on the ground that know exactly what is occurring in our communities and what then we must do on the national level to make sure that we arm them correctly to protect our families from these international drug lords.

This is a commonsense amendment that I would encourage all of my colleagues to support.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to this amendment, my friend's amendment to the National Uniformity for Food Act. We have seen time and time again in recent years it takes swift and coordinated response from local, State and Federal officials to confront disasters of any kind, especially those caused by terrorists who seek to do us harm.

This amendment, however well-intentioned, will do little more than add to the bureaucratic wrangling that can hamper, not improve, our ability to launch a coordinated response in time of trouble. State officials have nothing to fear from this bill as originally written. It has no impact on the ability of local, State and Federal officials to respond to a food emergency or bioterrorist threat.

However, for those who, like me, like additional assurances that this legislation would in no way inhibit our ability to cope with a natural or terrorist-made disaster, I respectfully offer that the Rogers amendment that was agreed to would assuage those concerns. It would require the Secretary of Health and Human Services, in consultation with the Secretary of Homeland Security, to certify that the legislation poses no additional threat to public health or safety in time of crisis. Therefore, the law can take effect.

It should adequately assuage the concerns of Mr. Waxman and all others. I urge my colleagues to support the Rogers amendment and vote against the Waxman amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H.R. 1259, a Resolution authorizing the President to award a gold medal on behalf of the Congress to the Tuskegee Airmen.

This recognition of the Tuskegee Airmen, members of an elite group who fought valiantly for America's freedoms overseas while

overcoming racial discrimination, is long overdue. Their story deserves to be told often, not just during this month of February, to remind all Americans of the many sacrifices made along the way by Americans of color in the military who faced discrimination here at home.

I have the privilege of representing four Tuskegee Airmen who reside in my Congressional District: Robert Holts, Ralph Orduna, and Charles Lane, all of Omaha and just south of Omaha in Bellevue, Harry Tull. A fifth Airman, Paul Adams, lives in nearby Lincoln, Nebraska. I am especially proud to note that Colonel Lane of Omaha was the youngest black fighter in World War II. His daughter, Karen Davis, is a longtime member of my District Office staff.

I also want to mention Omaha native Alphonza Davis, who graduated from Omaha Tech High School and later Omaha University. He finished first in his class at Tuskegee and was chosen squadron leader. He was killed in combat in 1944 while over Germany. The local Tuskegee Airmen chapter in Omaha is named after him.

Mr. Speaker, the story of the Tuskegee Airmen was written in the context of racial segregation that existed in our country during World War II. African Americans who wanted to fly in the military were trained at a separate location near Tuskegee, Alabama. The Tuskegee Airmen, known as the Red Tails because of the crimson tails on their aircraft, were the first squadron of African American combat pilots in the U.S. military. Nearly 1,000 men had graduated from pilot training at Tuskegee by the end of the war.

Under the command of Colonel Benjamin Davis, Jr., these aviators served in combat in campaigns in North Africa, Sicily and Europe. Colonel Davis later became the first African American general in the U.S. Air Force.

The Tuskegee Airmen and their record of success during the war are unmatched. Not a single American bomber protected by the Red Tails was ever shot down by enemy aircraft. By war's end, the Tuskegee Airmen had flown over 15,000 sorties, completed over 1,500 missions, destroyed more than 260 enemy aircraft, and more than 1,000 enemy vehicles on the ground. The Airmen were awarded 744 Air Medals, 150 Distinguished Flying Crosses, 14 Bronze Stars, and 8 Purple Hearts.

I join my colleagues in recognizing the Tuskegee Airmen for their gallant and heroic achievements and urge adoption of H.R. 1259. The award of gold medals to these national heroes is only a small token of the thanks they richly deserve for their service to our Nation.

Mr. Chairman, I believe that America is at its best when we welcome people from other countries, other cultures and possessing diverse skill sets. I believe that, in fact, this strengthens our country.

I need only to go back a couple of generations to see this in my family, who immigrated to this amazing country from Ireland and Eastern Europe.

But my ancestors came legally and that is the question, in part, before us today. We have lost control of both our northern and southern borders, our maritime border is porous and anyone with the most innocent or worst of intentions can walk or drive into the United States and assimilate into our communities.

This illegal immigration must be stopped.

Securing our border is the proper first step. This Act authorizes a thousand new border patrol agents and properly equips them with modern technology. More needs to be done to properly secure our ports of entry along our east and west coasts and our northern and southern borders. For the many agencies involved this is a large but very important task.

Employers are provided better means to information, allowing them to determine whether or not the potential hire is properly documented. This Act also places some responsibility on employers to make such a determination.

We must revise our current laws to allow legal and secure immigration.

I am disappointed that this bill doesn't include a sensible, nonamnesty guest-worker provision. We have the opportunity to take the lead on this aspect of immigration policy and it would be a mistake to ignore it.

A good guest-worker statute recognizes that folks from around the world and yes, from Mexico, desire to work in the United States to earn good wages to help their families, and these workers add to the value of our country and its economy.

A guest-worker statute should ensure that the guest-worker is not a criminal, is not associated with a terrorist organization, is healthy and has an employer-sponsor. The employer must have some responsibility to actually hire this person for the entire duration of the worker's time in the United States and notify the proper agency if the worker changes or leaves the employer.

As the great nation we are, we should welcome those who want to contribute and not accept those who refuse to live under our rule of law.

Mr. Speaker, I rise in strong support of H.R. 2017, the Torture Victims Relief Reauthorization Act of 2005.

Congress originally approved the Torture Victims Relief Act in 1998 to provide medical, psychological and social services for survivors of torture in the United States. These survivors are primarily refugees from war-torn nations such as Bosnia, Iraq, the Sudan, Rwanda, Liberia, Afghanistan and others. Since the TVRA became law, over three dozen centers have been established nationwide to help survivors of torture regain the ability to care for themselves and their families, and positively contribute to our society. Most programs are at-capacity and must refer ``waiting list'' survivors to less-specialized clinics until treatment becomes available.

Reauthorization is critical to the estimated 400,000 torture survivors residing in the United States. The city of Lincoln, Nebraska, is home to the second highest refugee population in the Nation, and a corresponding treatment center that effectively transforms the lives of torture survivors to benefit the entire community. H.R. 2017 will help ensure such critical treatment centers remain available for torture survivors nationwide by reauthorizing the TVRA. The demand for treatment is so high that federal funding had to be cut to some existing centers last year in order to open new centers. Reauthorizing the TVRA will help provide critical support to all existing centers working to restore the lives and health of many refugees.

H.R. 2017 will authorize $25 million in fiscal years 2006 and 2007 to fund domestic treatment centers, $25 million over 2 years for the United States Agency for International Development, USAID, Victims of Torture Fund, and $15 million over two years for the United Nations' Voluntary Fund for the Victims of Torture, which supports almost all U.S. centers. The House Energy and Commerce Committee, on which I serve, unanimously reported this legislation during the last Congress.

Here are some facts underlining the importance of this legislation:

The Office of Refugee Resettlement of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services currently funds 27 treatment centers in 16 States, while other similar programs are funded in State health departments. Many centers do not have enough resources to meet existing demand from torture survivors in their communities.

Not surprisingly, few programs engage in outreach to refugee communities since they would not have the capacity to absorb the increased client load that such outreach might generate. Consequently, many torture victims are not receiving the rehabilitation treatment they need.

There has been no increase in funding levels since fiscal year 2001. At the same time, the number of survivors seeking treatment at U.S. centers has steadily increased. The client base at 14 centers increased from 935 in 1999, to 1,550 in 2000, and to 2,579 in 2001. In 2002, a subsequent survey showed that 23 federally-funded centers had treated 3,664 clients that year.

Despite the high need and demand for torture survivor services, the Office of Refugee Resettlement was forced to reduce funding to existing programs last year in order to open additional needed centers. One program had to close its doors, while others laid off employees or reduced the number of torture victims that can receive treatment.

The network of treatment centers in the United States still needs to be expanded, especially in areas with significant refugee and immigrant communities. For example, there are no treatment centers in Miami, New Orleans, Cleveland or Seattle.

Current funding does not provide for evaluation and research to strengthen the effectiveness of treatment programs for victims. In order to reach a greater number of torture survivors in the United States, training on the identification and treatment of victims of torture should be provided to general health care providers and hospitals.

Torture victims are often targeted for persecution by repressive regimes because of their independent political, religious or labor activities. Even after a dictatorial regime has fallen, the impact of torture can be felt for years: Dissidents are broken and potential leaders are lost; their families and communities are still frightened and disengaged from public life; there is a profound lack of trust in public institutions, police, and courts; political apathy is a lesson learned and lived out every day. But with medical, psychological and social services, torture survivors can again become contributing members of their communities, and lead lives of hope and success.

H.R. 2017 is critical for torture victims and their families, and I urge all of my colleagues to strongly support it.

Mr. Speaker, as the House of Representatives considers passage of the Deficit Reduction Act, I rise in overall support of H.R. 4241. As the process moves forward, I urge my colleagues in this chamber and in the conference to consider some additions and changes.

The actual estimated average cost to a community retail pharmacy to dispense prescription drugs ($9.25) is greater than the minimum multi- source dispensing fee established by H.R. 4241 ($8.00). Because H.R. 4241 does not establish a dispensing fee for single source medications, commonly known as brand-name drugs, I urge my colleagues to consider an increase in dispensing fees for both single source and multisource medications that adequately compensates community retail pharmacies for their cost to dispense prescription drugs within the Medicaid program. In addition, I urge my colleagues to encourage the states to conduct mandatory comprehensive studies to determine actual distribution expenses incurred by community retail pharmacies participating in the Medicaid program so that fair and equitable distribution reimbursement rates can be established.

We should also do all we can to provide incentives to increase the distribution of generic therapeutic equivalent drugs when they are available. While our bill provides higher dispensing fees for generics based on Retail Average Manufacturers Price (RAMP) plus cost, I still do not feel that there is enough incentive in our model to encourage effective use of generics. I encourage continued work in conference to increase the utilization of generics, which in itself has significant savings potential.

H.R. 4241 establishes a new benchmark formula for establishing reimbursement rates for community retail pharmacies participating in the Medicaid program. The benchmark formula, known as RAMP, can often be significantly out of date because it is updated on a quarterly basis and it often is not determined and posted for another quarter. Because pharmaceuticals prices are updated on a daily basis, the RAMP has the potential to be as much as six months out of date. Accordingly, I urge my colleagues to consider modifying requirements related to RAMP from a quarterly recalculation basis to a monthly basis so that community retail pharmacies do not have to absorb significant financial losses due to fluctuations in real cost.

Mr. Speaker, it is with great sadness that I rise to pay tribute to Army Captain Joel Cahill, a company commander in the 1st Battalion, 15th Infantry, Fort Benning, Georgia. Captain Cahill was killed in western Iraq on Sunday, the 5th of November. He served two tours in Iraq, as well as two tours in Afghanistan with a unit of the U.S. Army Rangers.

Captain Cahill grew up in Nebraska, and after graduating from Papillion La Vista High School, he joined the Army and began Special Forces training. He was awarded several citations including the Army Achievement Medal and the Soldier's Medal. He was a graduate with honors from the University of Nebraska--Omaha in 1999, earning his commission from the UNO-Creighton ROTC program.

Because of his professionalism and bravery, Captain Cahill was accepted into the Army Rangers, one of the elite groups in the Armed Forces.

Captain Cahill was a devoted father to his two daughters, Faith and Brenna, and devoted husband to their mother, Mary. Faith and Brenna were the joys of his life whenever he could be stateside.

My prayers are with his family, and I offer my condolences to his parents, Larry and Barbara; his three brothers, Larry Jr., Randy, and Jason; and his sister, Erin Christensen.

As a nation, we will honor Captain Cahill's service to the United States with his burial with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery Friday, November 18, 2005.

We are blessed to have men and women like Captain Cahill serve in our military. His deeds, actions, decency, and passion for defending the freedoms we all enjoy will not be forgotten. May he be laid to rest as a hero to his family and to all of us who honor his service to America.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin for yielding me this time.

I rise in opposition to this bill, and I first want to say that the gentleman from Florida is my chairman. I am a part of his subcommittee and really respect and appreciate his efforts on this bill. We have just drawn different conclusions.

I think the fundamental question that we have to ask about this bill is whether or not boxing, professional boxing, and that is what we are here to talk about is professional boxing, is worth creating another bureaucracy within the Department of Commerce. No matter how we cloak this, it is creating a new entity of rules and regulation, enforcement within the Department of Commerce to oversee a professional sport, although I will say ``professional sport'' with quotations around it.

Where we have professional sports, all of the professional sports have their own regulatory body where they themselves have gotten together and formed, like the Mayflower Compact, their own regulatory or government overseeing body with their own rules and regulations within that body. To my knowledge, boxing is the only sport that has come before Congress asking us to save the sport from itself.

We held several hearings on this within our committee and subcommittee. We had several big-name people from the sport, Muhammad Ali, commissioners from around the State, promoters. All testified to the corruptness of professional boxing, and I asked the witnesses before us at one of our panels, I said, if professional boxing wants to eliminate any semblance of legitimacy, make themselves in essence the wrestling of that sport, why should we care? They came back and said, Well, because we have to. We cannot, in essence, get our own act together; and it is for the health of the boxers. That is why if it is for the health of the boxers, I suggested that we should just ban professional boxing. I offered an amendment and withdrew it.

But the issue to me is if the boxing profession wants to make itself irrelevant as a legitimate professional sport, let us give them that opportunity to do so. Let us not create a new Federal bureaucracy to save themselves from themselves.