Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, we are actually having a debate today far beyond health care, far beyond the economy. Not many businessmen are probably listening to this debate as they're too busy working to make a profit so other Americans can be employed.

As we face rising unemployment in a stagnant economy, the Democrats propose a government takeover of health care and of taxes on small business to pay for that government takeover of health care. They have an energy proposal that will cripple American manufacturing and that will enact endless regulations, increasing the cost of making things in America.

On this floor, Democrats have repeatedly confused gross profits and net profits. In the student loan debate, the person before me even confused revenue with net profits. He said he was going to take the revenue from the private companies and use it for government purposes.

From the President on down the party line, there has been a philosophical attack on the concept of profit and capital. Government does not create jobs. It redistributes profits. Profits create jobs. Capital creates jobs. That is why our system is called capitalism. This economy cannot recover if the leadership of our country has no basic understanding of how our economic system works, and we will not have growth by destroying the capitalist system.

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

And while I have a general interest in this entire bill from the icebreakers for the Great Lakes to ballast water to the years that I've worked with Mr. Cummings on narcotics issues, in particular, I am here tonight to address the homeland security portions of this bill. And first let me say that I also appreciate the strong bipartisan support within the Committee on Homeland Security that we traditionally enjoy when considering this very important legislation.

The bill before us proposes to authorize the activities of the United States Coast Guard for the fiscal year 2010. It increases the authorized force levels by 1,500 members and provides $10 billion to execute the Coast Guard's many missions. Its consideration is long overdue, and as we've been saying over and over, it's about time the Senate followed along. The last time the Coast Guard had an authorization bill signed into law was 2006, and I'm very pleased that we can bring another authorization bill for the Coast Guard today. And I join, again, my colleagues in voicing my support for its timely consideration in the Senate.

In the immediate aftermath of September 11, Coast Guard forces around New York and New Jersey surged to ensure the safe evacuation of half a million people from Lower Manhattan. Coast Guard forces around the world changed their posture as they were given orders to set DEFCON III. Coast Guard cutters on-loaded their military complement of weapons and ammunition, and captains of the port around the country restricted or completely shut down vessel movements.

In 2002, with the passage of the Homeland Security Act, the Coast Guard's missions were placed into categories--safety and security. The Congress specifically identified port security, drug interdiction, and defense readiness as key homeland security missions. However, while much of the Coast Guard's funding increases over the past 8 years have gone toward these homeland security missions, I would argue that these missions were seriously underfunded prior to 9/11. In fact, prior to 9/ 11, the Coast Guard only expended about 2 percent of its available resources on its port security missions.

To those who argue the Coast Guard has moved too far from its safety and regulatory missions, one need only revisit the agency's response to Hurricane Katrina. Following the landfall of Hurricane Katrina, pre- positioned Coast Guard forces moved in quickly to

answer tens of thousands of desperate calls for help. In fact, according to the Government Accountability Office, the Coast Guard participated in the rescue of over half of the estimated 60,000 left stranded by Hurricane Katrina. The agency itself was described as the ``silver lining'' in the storm that was the Federal response to Katrina. Now-Commandant Allen received many accolades for his efforts to improve and coordinate the Federal response in the aftermath.

I would like to state for the record that the Committee on Homeland Security should have held a markup on this legislation. By going through regular order in the committee, we could have added even more to this bill. That being said, I appreciate that Chairman Thompson, Ranking Member King, Chairman Oberstar, and Ranking Member Mica, as well as the Subcommittee Chairmen Cummings and LoBiondo, for working with us to address some concerns in the manager's amendment and in the underlying port security title.

The port security title, as amended, would--and I want to again thank Ranking Member King for his leadership--would, one, create a public awareness campaign to ensure suspicious activities on or near the water are reported to authorities. This is very critical. The Great Lakes area, all coastal areas, all border areas, having cooperation is absolutely essential because we simply do not have enough Coast Guard vessels. If commercial or recreational boaters see something, they should say something, and they need a way to report it.

Provide the Coast Guard a second elite counterterrorism Maritime Security Response Team to ensure nationwide coverage is available to address the most severe maritime threats.

Address several shortcomings of the Transportation Worker Identification Credential program, including clarifying that TWIC cards are only required by licensed mariners who access secure areas of facilities and vessels.

Expand the Coast Guard's successful biometrics at sea program. I'd like to thank my friend from Florida (Mr. Bilirakis) for his steadfast support of this program.

The Committee on Homeland Security has taken great efforts to ensure that the Coast Guard executes its security missions by allocating its limited resources based on risk. One of the more significant changes in the manager's amendment addresses the importance of risk-based methodology for security of all vessels caring dangerous cargos and does not limit itself only to liquefied natural gas tankers.

In 2008, the Coast Guard identified over 12,500 shipments of dangerous cargo. However, because of very limited resources, Federal, State, and local law enforcement was only able to escort about 7 percent of these shipments.

In the short-term, the bill, as amended, would require the Coast Guard to guard those shipments that pose the greatest risk, with available Federal, State, and local resources. It will also require the Coast Guard to ensure all of its partners have the necessary training, equipment, and resources for that security mission.

While I think that this is a good bill with bipartisan support, I do have some concerns about issues not addressed in the bill, and I hope that the Committee on Homeland Security will take up in this Congress a number of these.

First, it is essential that the Coast Guard maintain a strong focus on counternarcotics. We need to have serious discussions about how to ensure greater coverage in the Pacific, including the need for oiler support. As the drug runners go farther out to sea, as they move terrorists and questionable people in those areas, we have to have the ability to go out and get them, and that means refueling capability; and how to better address the semisubmersible smuggling trend, that is, the minisubmarines that are increasingly bringing in huge loads of cocaine and, really, any contraband, could move chemical and biological weapons in through this procedure.

Additionally, we cannot ignore security in the Arctic region and what role the Coast Guard is playing and should be playing in that arena, where right now the Russians are dominating.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman, again for your bipartisan work on this bill. I look forward to working with you in the future on these important issues.

I reserve the balance of my time.

May I inquire how much time each side has.

I yield myself such time as I may consume.

Once again, I want to thank the chairman of the Transportation Committee and Subcommittee and Chairman Thompson from our committee on behalf of Ranking Member King and the full Homeland Security Committee for the bipartisan leadership and the many things that we can work together on.

In our Subcommittee on Border and Port Security and Terrorism, the Coast

Guard is absolutely a key and integral part of that. The Homeland Security Committee needs to be engaged in this process as we work this through.

As you've heard from Congressman Cuellar, who is also on our subcommittee, you think of the coast as the east and west coast or the Gulf of Mexico, but in fact the Rio Grande River, the Great Lakes, the Saint Lawrence Seaway, other rivers, the boundary waters area in northern Minnesota that Chairman Oberstar represents. A big percentage of our so-called land borders are actually water borders and trying to figure out proper training, how to handle the water, how we work with the air and marine divisions of CBP and integrate with the Coast Guard is critical to our borders. Obviously, port security comes under the Coast Guard. They're integrated in the State and local. They have amazing facilities.

We need to make sure, as this bill addresses, that the training is there but the resources are there and that we have these specialized teams. I think this bill goes a long way towards this, and we need to have the Senate take it up and pass it as well. But we need to stay ever vigilant because the Coast Guard is a key part of FEMA, it's a key part of fisheries, it's a key part of trying to protect our waters as well as trying to rescue people who fall into various places and save their lives. They are multi-task.

But a critical part of that is a homeland security mission, and I appreciate that we are able to work together in a bipartisan way on this bill.

I yield back the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I rise today to recognize Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance who celebrated, their 75th Anniversary on October 17th. Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance was originally founded in 1934 to cater to the unique insurance needs of our agriculture community. It has since expanded to provide

life, home, auto, and business services and today is the largest writer of farm insurance and the second largest writer of personal lines of insurance in the state. In Indiana, Farm Bureau Insurance is truly a ``part of your life''--with offices in all of our 92 counties, and 1700 employees across the Hoosier state.

While the company has experienced significant growth and development, Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance has remained deeply committed to the community it serves. They have always believed that the strongest investment you can make for the future is to invest in young people, and their actions bear this out.

For 20 years, Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance organized the eXcel Awards, a prestigious high school art competition that granted over $700,000 in scholarships and encouraged the talent and creativity of high school artists and performers. They sponsor the Indiana High School Athletic Association's Mental Attitude Awards, honoring students who excel in athletic ability, leadership, mental attitude, and scholarship in all 39 IHSAA tournament sports. They have also made academics and safety a priority amongst our youth through initiatives like Top Scholar and the Teenage Driver Safety and Education Program. These programs reward young drivers with a $1000 savings bond for completing safety training and provide insurance discounts for students for maintaining a B average respectively. In my district, Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance helps supply healthy activities for our children by sponsoring little league and 4-H, and they are active participants in Holiday initiatives, adopting needy families and donating clothes, toys and foods.

Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance has assisted numerous families and individuals plan for the unexpected and has been a steadfast partner in our community. Madam Speaker, I ask my colleagues to join me in honoring Indiana Farm Bureau Insurance on their 75th Anniversary.

Mr. Speaker, I'm going to make a number of comments here that will be in the Record tomorrow. We'll also have the things I refer to--because I'm going to make a number of points--on our Web site in the next hour.

President Obama made his first visit after the stimulus package passed to Elkhart, Indiana, to Concord High School for a town hall meeting that straddles Congressman Donnelly's and my district. Unemployment was 15.3 percent when he visited. It went higher, up to close to 20 percent. It's now at 16.5, I believe. In other words, we've gone backwards.

What he said that day--referring to a previous campaign visit there-- ``I promised you back then that, if elected, I'd do everything I could to help this community recover and that's why I come back today because I intend to keep my promise.''

Now, some interesting things have been happening. We've heard about blaming the banks. You know, business, to invest, has to have an idea that a recovery is coming. It has to request the money. And part of the challenge here if they're uncertain whether they're going to get taxed in a small business tax, if they're uncertain whether they are going to be taxed in health care, if they're uncertain of what the energy costs are going to be in Indiana--because ours are projected to get hit harder than any other congressional district in America, and I have the number one manufacturing district--they aren't asking to borrow and the banks don't know how to value the assets.

We have to have a recovery, not taxes and pressures on industry. There's a classic book, ``Competitive Advantage of Nations'' by Michael Porter. He's written a lot of books since then, including one on health care I don't particularly agree with. But he's a very reflective man, and these are the basic principles of how you develop clusters.

He says, ``Creating competitive advantage in sophisticated industries demands improvement and innovation--finding better ways to complete and exploiting them globally, and relentlessly upgrading the firm's products and processes.''

In another section of the book he says, We ``must create new advantages at least as fast as competitors can replicate old ones.''

He also points out the United Kingdom, in their R&D, is among the highest compared to GDP of any nations, but top heavy government R&D. They don't have the private sector R&D, so they don't have the growth, and the growth they have is in the wrong areas.

Now, why do I bring this up? In a newsletter of ``ORTHOKNOW, Strategic Insights Into the Orthopedic Industry,'' John Engelhardt reports the 10 to 30 percent tax in the Senate Finance Committee's bill that was passed yesterday would lead to roughly a tax of 50 percent of the R&D that the orthopedics industry does. For example, Zimmer--based in my district--in the orthopedics cluster, Zimmer would be taxed $94.7 million and their R&D is $194 million. They're the biggest orthopedic company.

Biomet--which I believe is the fourth or fifth biggest orthopedic company--would be taxed $60.9 million. R&D estimate for 2008 was 82.2, and they had a loss.

Now, Michael Porter points out when you lose one or two, you lose that competitive pressure, that you cannot sustain R&D with the new taxes, especially if at the margins the cost of the tax is greater than the profits of the firm, let alone the R&D.

I also refer to a USA Today article of this morning that says, ``Orthopedic Industry Has Enjoyed Fine Health.'' And it goes to Warsaw, Indiana in my district where three of the five biggest of the orthopedic companies, plus Medtronic, plus Orthopediatric, plus 6,000 direct feeding, plus as you move to South Bend and over to Fort Wayne and down to Indianapolis--and in fact throughout the Midwest--and then if you look at the whole industry of the United States, it's a cluster.

We had this theory in America that we were going to move up the ladder. And as other countries beat us on labor, we would do things like pharmaceuticals, like orthopedics, like biotechnology. We'd be the cutting edge, except now we're going to tax them to death.

So guess what this article says? They're looking at going overseas. I've already heard this. Why won't they go offshore if they can get cheaper labor? They can get engineering research, they can get government subsidies to some degree, but most importantly, they're going to go where they can do R&D and the combination cheaper than they can do it in the United States. A tax won't bring in revenue, a tax will drive our clusters away. To put the taxes on the most innovative clusters is unbelievable. I just don't understand, particularly in a State where the President said not 30 miles away from the center of the orthopedic industry where many of these parts people are, ``I promise you it will improve.''

The maverick CEO, Dane Miller, and the story of Biomet illustrates another myth that these are some sort of rich billionaires. It talks how he put a titanium hip in his own body because initially they wouldn't believe it, then it worked, and that's partly how we got the innovation today.

I encourage people to read this bio of Dane Miller.

[From Orthoknow, Oct. 2009]

Success Fees for Orthopaedics?

(By John A. Engelhardt)

In the Senate Finance Committee's healthcare reform bill,

partial financing will come from ``fees'' imposed on the

manufacturers of medical devices. As I review what is being

proposed, I am (nearly) at a loss for words. The total cost

to medical device companies will be $40 billion over ten

years. That's $4 billion a year. Here is how it shakes down.

The U.S. medical device industry in 2009 is projected to be

valued at $91.3 billion. Orthopaedic revenues generated in

the U.S. in 2008 reached $21.7 billion. Assuming flat growth

from 2008 to 2009, orthopaedics would then comprise 23.7% of

the total medical device industry in the U.S. in 2009.

America's Healthy Future Act of 2009, ``Annual Fee on

Manufacturers and Importers of Medical Devices,'' would

impose an aggregate fee of $4 billion on the medical device

industry, payable annually, beginning in 2010. Each company's

fee would be calculated based on its relative market share of

U.S. sales for the prior year with covered domestic sales

taken into account as follows:

0% of sales up to $5 million

50% of sales over $5 million and up to $25 million

100% of sales over $25 million

According to our calculations, if orthopaedics represents

23.7% of the total medical device industry, then its portion

of

the $4 billion would be $949 million. Exhibit 1 summarizes

the fees assessed for several companies.

You will note that this is not being called a tax. Thus, it

is NOT deductible by these companies as a legitimate business

expense. Let me just repeat that for effect. It is NOT

deductible by these companies as a legitimate business

expense!

The ``fee'' adds up to about four percent of orthopaedic

product sales for the companies. Since it is not deductible,

that automatically comes OFF the bottom line. The loss drops

right through the P&L. Here are some highlights.

In the case of Exactech, it wipes out nearly 40% of its

earnings. The value of the company will decrease a pro rata

amount, losing $60 million in shareholder value.

In 2008, Osteotech made a small profit of $2.2 million.

Under the Senate proposal, the company would pay $3MM in

fees! This is a company struggling back to health. How long

would they be able to remain a viable entity?

Biomet, in the midst of a rebuilding and restructuring,

lost $749MM in 2008. Under the new plan, it would pay almost

$61MM. I am not making this up.

Alphatec would have to pay about $3MM for the pleasure of

having lost about $25MM!

Study Exhibit 1 carefully. You'll find yourselves asking

many questions. What planet are we on? Where did these

Senators go to school?

Did they even go to school? Maybe they didn't have math in

their school.

It is very hard to argue with the economics of orthopaedic

care. It has been positively documented for a half century.

Many people describe joint replacement as among mankind's

most significant achievements, not only for the suffering it

relieves but for its economic value to society. Recently,

others have published the more compelling metrics of

orthopaedic treatment in response to the reform debates. (See

the ORTHOWORLD Position Paper on Healthcare Reform,

www.orthoworld.com/site/index.php/main/healthcare, and

Connections, the blog of Biomet CEO, Jeffrey

R. Binder, www.biomet.com/corporate/ceo

Blog/.)

It's as if, in their infinite wisdom, our representatives

have identified the achievers and propose to levy a cost on

them to help support the underachievers.

These companies have done too well, helped too many people,

created too many good quality jobs. Shouldn't we be holding

them up as an example to others, in order to encourage

efficiency and reward performance?

I can think of no other term for this than a penalty for

success. In essence, these companies will have to pay for the

right to do business in their own country.

Forgive me if I am having trouble grasping the idea that if

you fail, the government gives you taxpayer's money to bail

you out. If you succeed, that same government fines you?

I hope not to insult any of you reading this when I suggest

exactly what this will cause, because it is so obvious to us

thinking folks.

1. Jobs will be lost. These companies are massive providers

of extremely high quality jobs. They will be forced to pare

down their workforces.

2. Jobs will be moved overseas. In order to make up the

margin deficits, good corporate stewards will examine all

opportunities to drive costs down.

3. R&D budgets will be reduced and innovation will slow.

4. U.S. companies will focus on the markets outside the

States where the penalties don't apply. They'll get four more

cents on a dollar of sales if the sale is ex-U.S.

5. The cost of healthcare will not budge.

6. When the plan fails, the government will just come back

for more.

What's next? Bonus points for product recalls?

And so it goes. We take from the most successful, and give

to the least, until such time as a steady state of mediocrity

is reached. This goes way beyond everyone getting an award in

the T-Ball tournament.

I will hereby propose a new Mediocrity Czar, whose job it

will be to ensure that all aspects of society are put on an

even playing field. Here are some suggestions.

Sports

LeBron James will be required to give every point over 20

per game to the other team.

Michael Phelps will have to swim with a cinderblock tied to

his leg to allow all those who have never won a gold medal to

do so.

Tiger Woods will be required to carry his own bag, and will

not be allowed to set it down during play.

Business

Bill Gates and Steve Jobs will have a portion of their

brains removed until such time as those pesky competitors of

theirs catch up.

Politics

No action needed.

Perhaps there is more that orthopaedics can do to

contribute.

All sales reps and distributors will have their commission

structures modified such that the more they sell, the less

they make. Those who sell more than $5MM per year will give a

portion of their commissions to those who didn't sell squat.

Surgeon reimbursement will be inversely proportional to

surgical volume.

If a surgeon is too talented and popular with patients, he/

she will be required to strike that patient soundly with a

stick at the end of each office visit.

This should help just about everyone rise to the middle.

A generation ago, some of the people reading this article

and their forebears were called upon by mankind to help

eliminate the suffering of millions of people crippled by

arthritis, debilitated by back pain and homebound by

injuries.

You responded with joint replacement, spinal fusion and

arthroplasty, arthroscopy and soft tissue repair and trauma

technologies, and the result was that these lost souls were

able to return to active lives as healthy contributors to

society.

You are called upon again today, as we seek to find a way

to treat the millions of new orthopaedic patients stressing

the system. Only this time we're broke.

So it looks as if we are being asked to pay for the right

to contribute further.

Surely there is a better solution that will not undo a

century of progress in healing.

Right, and you have taken the lead here on the floor. Trying to make sure we present this, I have got a couple of specific points, but one, which you are doing through this, is at a minimum, the public needs to know what's in the bill, and the thought that something may come here without 72 hours to read it, which is not a long time, is just abhorrent.

The other body passed a Senate Finance bill, which has correctly been called a conceptual bill, that we heard the budget estimates of that bill. But as they said in the notes, in their report, you can't hold us accountable for these estimates because the bill doesn't specify how they are going to achieve certain savings, doesn't specify how certain things are going to be paid for, doesn't specify exactly what they are covering. It doesn't give enough specifics.

Even when you are taking over this big a sector of the economy, 1,000 pages is like a sneeze at this problem. There has to be not only 72 hours to read it, but we need to actually see a real bill, not a conceptual bill.

Now, there are a couple of things. Our friend from Pennsylvania alluded to this one. We have had this huge controversy about the so- called death counselors that are clearly in the bill to do counseling in the last 5 years of life and if your condition deteriorates. Many of us are strong supporters of hospice care. I think a lot of people thought this was for hospice care, but they are getting cut 18 percent. I just read a letter from someone in my district that says we don't know how our hospice care can survive with these cuts. What is the point of these counselors if you are wiping out the hospice care?

No wonder some people are a tad paranoid. I don't know what it means. How can we know what it means? What we know is it looks like they are rationing because they are cutting off services to Medicare.

Well, it says they will present all the alternatives. But I assume that the real intent around that was to promote hospice care. But if they are cutting hospice care, and the hospice centers don't know what they are doing and you are rationing certain life supports, and if they are talking about how much is spent in the last years of life, this is really disturbing stuff.

That's why we have to read the bill. We have to know precisely what's in it. What do you mean when you put that kind of stuff in?

Where that section was on our House bill referred back to the Social Security act. It didn't even fit. The counseling part didn't even fit. Nothing else in there was counseling. It was things like liver and all this kind of stuff. It was incredibly sloppily written. It will be forever litigated.

It seems to set up a pattern where you are going to be counseled and given a different alternative from hospice to euthanasia. You are going to be told you are going to get things reduced, or at least they should disclose that. But if there is no hospice that can survive, particularly in the smaller markets--which brings up another critical point. The cardiologists were here on the Hill just a couple of weeks ago.

The challenge here is that people are confused. You hear the President or others say it's not in the bill, then you hear the Republicans make an allegation.

Here is the thing. It doesn't specify, A, if we could read the bill, but what we see doesn't specify. What it does say is there will be counseling. In another section it says there's going to be savings, which implies rationing, and in another section--or implementing and procedures, a cut for hospice care.

In another part of it it says, the first part says 5 years. Nobody knows exactly what that means, every 5, once in 5, not explained. Then later it says if you have a condition change. When you put those together, you come to a logical conclusion.

But then the other side goes, well, it's not in the bill. Well, not precisely, but it's in there in five different places, and there is no other way to resolve it. There has to be some kind of unit that has to put this together to make these kinds of decisions.

In this waste and abuse, one of the questions is what does waste and abuse mean.

The cardiologists were in the other week, and the oncologists the week before that, because they were concerned because they have started to implement some of these procedures. What we hear is that, well, if there is waste and abuse, why aren't we checking it right now.

Well, they are defining waste and abuse as underutilization of equipment. What does underutilization of a heart machine mean? What does underutilization of a heart center mean? What does nonefficient usage of oncology machines mean?

In Indiana, what it means is everybody goes to Indianapolis. You are going to close your heart centers in Fort Wayne because you have a utilization of 44 percent, not the 80 they are mandating. It means South Bend, Evansville, northwest. In Missouri, maybe you get Kansas City and St. Louis.

We had a number of Russian health care administrators in my district as well as people from the Duma a number of years ago. We took them to some of our hospital systems. They said we have seen most of this stuff in Moscow. What's unusual even in the United States is that even in towns of 15,000 you have hospitals like we have in our big cities.

When we hear about lines in Canada and England, it's partly because, to be efficient, they have people drive 200 miles to a heart center, and they get to pay the mileage. They get to pay for the motel. They get to go back for repeat visits and the cost to them. That's not savings of waste and abuse; that's transferring the fees to individuals.

What we have right now is a dispersed health care system that brings it closer to home with what we call RediMeds in our area. You have blended regional hospitals feeding up to bigger hospitals. They seem to think that these savings are going to become like they were trying to do in the veterans hospital system in Indiana and make everybody go to the biggest city in the State.

Maybe he meant that he wasn't going to add one dime, that he was going to add a couple of trillion.

I beg to differ just slightly. While that's the amount that people pay, what I hear from doctors in my district--and we have MedPro, which is one of the biggest insurers of doctors--that that's just part of the cost of defensive medicine. After the doctors are told to keep your insurance down, make sure they get an MRI if they're questioning at all rather than extra x rays so they can't sue you, make sure you do this extra test, that doesn't count all the things that they do to try to avoid their rates from going up. We don't know what the cap is.

The problem with the studies that claim you don't save as much from tort reform by those who are proponents of

it literally do not take into account what doctors are saying in their daily practice of things that they wouldn't do at the margins if they didn't think there was a potential of being sued that would drive up the rates.

Will the gentleman yield?

Can you imagine the outrage in America if liquor stores posted on their door, No IDs checked here? If you went to a gas station where we assume that tobacco cannot be sold to minors but you had a sign that said no IDs checked here, would you believe that the liquor store or the place selling the tobacco isn't going to sell to minors? On what basis? In effect, what we're telling them in this bill, no IDs checked here, so how do you know?

Also as a member of the Labor Committee, my friend from Pennsylvania and myself and probably three others, I thought, were actually very articulate in arguing some of these amendments at 3 in the morning. Our audience wasn't very big. You know, when people say, oh, what happened, why didn't you guys--I mean, the only place we can offer amendments usually is committee. We don't get to offer them here on the floor.

Putting aside that that may be why they don't bother to let us read the bill, because we can't amend it anyway, that you would think that there would at least be some public responsibility to give us 72-hour notice. In committee, we didn't get 72 hours. As my friend from Pennsylvania, Mr. Thompson, has pointed out, it was just, I mean, we got it basically when we sat down, the final bill. Then we're debating it in the middle of the night, which the other party said was shameful when the Republicans held a vote because of the debate which was actually on the floor. We don't do debates in the middle of the night anymore because we don't do debates, we don't offer amendments.

But in the amendments in committee, the amendments on pro life, the amendments on trying to check ID, the amendments on a lot of these controversial provisions, nobody got to see the very eloquent debate. I thought we were pretty eloquent at 3 in the morning. You know, I took a little offense. I thought we were fairly good but nobody will witness it.

Another one for a second that you referred to earlier. That, you know, people can say things. We can stand up and say whatever we want. But when you vote it's your action. And in the action--

Keep your own insurance, keep insurance the way it is? No. It was defeated. We had one that said catastrophic plus an HSA. That means that you could get flexibility to get catastrophic coverage that could be provided by the firm; they give you money so you get an HSA, and then if you want pregnancy coverage you could cover pregnancy. If you were older--like, we're probably not going to have any more babies; it would be a big shock if we did, since I am 59, about to turn 60, and my wife's similar. Much younger of course, but similar. I'm going to get killed when I get home. The bottom line is that we may not want pregnancy coverage, so why can't we get a health policy that's customized? Defeated.

You know, this idea that the Senate bill in their talking points today says they're going to allow you to keep your own insurance. And then further down it says all these new things will be added. Mandatory. By the way, that wouldn't be your insurance. If your insurance doesn't have it, that's not your insurance. Your company would have to either raise the prices or drop your policy. If they're dictating, that's not your own insurance.

There's one point I wanted to make sure I got in here tonight, because part of my district is stunned today. The Senate Finance bill yesterday is proposing a tax that ranges from 10 to 30 percent on the medical device industry. Now, when we talk about Medicare, what we're really talking about is they cover not quite variable costs, but cover no mixed costs, and no fixed costs for hospitals or for reimbursement of other things. Private pay pays for the rest of it. And what this bill is in danger of is squeezing or taxing out private pay.

Now what I hear often is why can't we just all go to the Medicare system? The Medicare system, people who are alive today wouldn't be alive if it were based on Medicare reimbursements because the pharmaceuticals wouldn't have been made. The hip replacements that they have, the shoulder replacements, the knees wouldn't have been invented, because the key is R&D. Lilly in Indianapolis, at one point, 60 percent of their profits were from Prozac. Every other drug that was invented was funded with R&D from that. But if they attach an R&D fixed amount to a particular drug, there will be no excess profits with which to experiment.

The orthopedics industry, according to OrthoKnow, an article by John Engelhardt that was just released shows that the tax on the orthopedic, a little town of Warsaw, 15,000 people in that county, is one-third of the orthopedics industry in the world in my district. Three of the five biggest, they

own the biggest companies in Europe, they are looking if this tax goes through and how they move out. This is one when we move up the ladder, we say we're not going to just flip hamburgers, we're going to go up, we're not going to do commodities, we're going to go higher, and then we get up to the higher areas, and we tax them.

Here is Zimmer, the biggest, based in Warsaw. Their R&D budget was $194 million. The tax under the Senate bill is 94.7. Stryker--

Commodities. The head and founder of Biomet, Dane Miller, talks about in here, they didn't think titanium was going to work. He had somebody serendipitously put into his arm titanium. He walked around with it for 12 years and proved it worked. And they said, wow, this doesn't disintegrate. They used to use basic pieces of wood as your hip. Now we customize it. We try to make it so that when soldiers get hurt on the battlefield and they are 18 years old, they're not going to die in 5 years. Is this going to be flexible enough? How is the skin and bone going to go around it? Michael Porter points out, innovation comes when you have a cluster and there's competition. You destroy that, you take away the R&D. Medicare doesn't pay for that. Private pay pays for that.

Furthermore, Zimmer is proposed to be taxed half. Stryker is proposed to be taxed half. Smith & Nephew is proposed to be taxed half of their R&D budget. Biomet, $82.2 million in research; $60.9 million is their tax. Because they were doing readjustments last year, they didn't even make any money.

Now, how do you think we are going to have a single innovation in orthopedics if you tax half of the R&D? And furthermore, they don't call it a ``tax,'' they call it a ``fee,'' so it is not even tax deductible.

The little ones get hit harder.

They come here.

When they need a new hip, the inventions are coming out of Warsaw, Indiana. The parts groups that work at some little companies like OrthoPediatrics, they're working on specialized hips for kids who are 4 years old and 6 years old. Are they going to go to Wal-Mart and pick one up off the shelf? Let's get real here.

Innovation requires competition. It requires investment. The way you keep a cluster, according to Michael Porter in ``The Competitive Advantage of Nations,'' when you have a cluster, you need competition. There has to be innovation every week, how can I get better? And that's driven by profit and by competition.

R&D in England is one of the highest in the world, yet they don't produce new products because the government is most of the R&D. It's not driven for what the consumer wants where the consumer basically rewards the market. And we are going to tax these little ones totally out and the big ones half, and we simply aren't going to get the products. So we don't have the option of going to Canada and England to get it.

The chancellor of one of my universities, yesterday, when I was at Turnstone, this fellow that works with kids who have physical disabilities and gets them recreational activities, he said, My dad is a veteran and my mom is now in the hospital, and we tried to check with the Federal Government to get the eligibility benefits. We kept getting taped messages saying the person is there on Thursdays for 2 hours.

That's what you'll get with government health care.

Madam Speaker, today the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs held a hearing on U.S. policy towards Burma. I would like to contribute some remarks on this important topic. I represent the Third District of Indiana, which is home to the largest concentration of people from Burma in the U.S. In recent years, resettlement agencies have placed well over 2,000 refugees in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Fort Wayne has also become a ``community of choice'' amongst the refugee community, and secondary migrants have increased Fort Wayne's population of people from Burma to over 6,000. As a result, the Third District is acutely aware of the atrocities and suffering that the people from Burma have faced at the hands of the State Peace and Development Council (SPDC).

I am disappointed that this hearing, which is intended to evaluate the role the U.S. can play in facilitating democratic reform, did not invite testimony from a single representative of Burma's democracy movement or one individual who has endured the violence of the Tatmadow. A thorough evaluation is impossible without their perspective.

Over the years, U.N. reports have documented some of the military regime's harrowing crimes, including widespread rape, conscription of child soldiers, torture, and the destruction of thousands of villages. It is clear that the SPDC has in part been conducting a war against its own citizens.

In spite of these realities, the Administration has recently engaged in direct dialogues with the Burmese regime and the Senate Committee's hearings today are in part seeking to reevaluate the role of sanctions in U.S. policy. I support the establishment of a peaceful and democratic Burma. However, it is improbable that this can be achieved through negotiations with the junta--a dictatorship will not act in good faith and broker a deal that will lead to its own demise.

Before such dramatic changes in policy can be made, it is necessary for the military dictatorship to demonstrate a clear movement towards democracy. This must include ending the current violence against its citizens, installing Daw Aung San Suu Kyi to her rightful place as Burma's democratically elected Prime Minister, and drafting a constitution that creates the possibility for true civilian leadership.

Until we see this kind of progress, the U.S. cannot give validity to this illegitimate government.

Madam Speaker, I rise to recognize the 100th Anniversary of Brooks 1st Construction. Brooks Construction is the consummate local family business. It started in 1909 as a partnership between two friends, James Brooks and Lester Ginn, with a $7,000 dollar investment from a Fort Wayne businessman, and today has grown into a leader in the construction development industry.

The capable hands of Brooks 1st Construction were responsible for much of the Third District's early infrastructure development. What is known today as Old Maumee Road was originally constructed by Brooks in 1911 to connect the cities of New Haven and Fort Wayne and was the first concrete road in the state of Indiana. With the growth of automobiles, Brooks Construction established itself as a leader in highway and road construction and in 1957 was charged with constructing the first section of the Indiana Toll Road.

Today, it is the premier contractor in Northeast Indiana, constructing highways, paving residential and commercial areas, and installing underground utilities across the Midwest. It is the standard for quality--its expansion of I-69 was selected as one of only eight finalists for the 1999 National Quality Initiative Award and five of its plants have received Diamond Awards from the National Association of Pavement and Development Association for excellence in appearance, safety, permitting and compliance, operations, environmental practices, and community relations.

Over the years, innovation has also defined Brooks 1st Construction, and its developments have led to the advances throughout the construction industry. They were one of the first companies to use self propelled concrete mixers. When the limitations of early trucks and drivers led to difficulty transporting materials, James Brooks developed a `turntable' to automatically turn around trucks and allow for accurate unloading. Early construction projects were often hindered by mobility and the amount of time it would take to move from one job to the next. To address this issue, Brooks Construction helped design ``portable'' plants, enabling them to move within 3 to 4 days. Their design soon became the industry standard greatly increasing efficiency.

More recently, Brooks' innovative spirit has led to environmental advances. In collaboration with National Serv-All, it developed a Landfill Gas Energy Recovery Project that utilizes waste gases created at an area landfill to heat one of its asphalt production plants. It also attempts to incorporate recycled materials in its products working to constantly find new ways to reduce costs and create a green product.

Throughout its long and successful history, Brooks 1st Construction has retained strong ties to the community where it got its start. The main facilities are still in Mishawaka, Goshen, Auburn and Fort Wayne Indiana. It is active with a number of local charities including Habitat for Humanity, the Boys and Girls Club, Family and Children Services to name a few. Brooks' contributions to educate young people and help them develop the leadership and entrepreneurial skills needed to succeed resulted in the company being inducted into the Junior Achievement Greater Business Hall of Fame.

I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the 100th Anniversary of Brooks 1st Construction.

In my district there is a wonderful little town of around 12,000 people called Warsaw, Indiana. It's in Kosciusko County, a county with 100 lakes, including our biggest natural lake in the State of Indiana and many other sizable lakes. Tippecanoe, Syracuse, Webster Lake, North Webster, Big and Little Chapman as well as many other lakes. At this point I would like to insert into the Record from The Wall Street Journal ``Sticks and Stones May Break Bones, but Warsaw, Indiana, Makes Replacements.''

[From the Wall Street Journal, Oct. 26, 2006]

Sticks and Stones May Break Bones, but Warsaw, Ind., Makes Replacements

(By Timothy Aeppel)

Warsaw, IN.--When Don Running and his two partners decided

to start up a company specializing in orthopedic plates and

screws to mend broken wrists two years ago, it was a given

that they would set up shop here.

Silicon Valley has computers. Detroit has cars. But in

orthopedic devices, the undisputed world capital is Warsaw, a

city of 12,500 with a silver-domed 19th-century courthouse

and pickups angled into the curb on Main Street.

Three of the world's five largest makers of artificial

joints and related surgical tools have their headquarters

here amid the lakes and fields of northeastern Indiana. The

local industry has grown so much that it's now a regional

force, with orthopedics companies popping up in nearby farm

towns and the suburbs of Fort Wayne, about 50 miles to the

east.

``How many orthopedic-implant engineers do you find walking

around most places?'' asks Mr. Running. ``Well around here,

you bump into them in the supermarket.''

Memphis, Tenn., and northern New Jersey are other industry

hotspots, but none rivals Warsaw for sheer concentration. And

while major orthopedics companies are looking overseas for

cheaper places to produce items such as basic bone screws and

metal plates, the U.S. retains a firm grip on the industry.

A big reason is that the U.S., with its population of fast-

aging baby boomers, injury-prone weekend athletes and

overweight people, is by far the world's biggest market for

artificial hips and knees. The U.S. represents an estimated

$14 billion of the annual spending in a global market of

$22.9 billion, according to Knowledge Enterprises Inc., a

Chagrin Falls, Ohio, market research firm.

The U.S. also effectively protects manufacturers in the

sector with strict regulations for devices that go inside the

human body. Rather than risk problems--and crippling

lawsuits--U.S. health-care providers buy their artificial

joints from companies they know, which generally means buying

American.

Profits are so good in the orthopedics industry that there

isn't much pressure on suppliers to shave costs by going to

low-cost

countries. ``The reason this business is in Warsaw and not

Mexico is because margins are 70% or better,'' says Ron

Clark, an orthopedic surgeon who founded his own company in

Fort Wayne, which is on the other side of the state from his

home in Valparaiso, in part so he could be closer to Warsaw.

Dr. Clark says savings from going abroad just aren't worth

it.

To be sure, the industry's dynamics may be starting to

change. Health-care providers are starting to push back

against the industry's steady price increases, raising

concerns among investors about whether profits for Warsaw

companies and others can keep up the brisk growth.

There are other shadows over Warsaw's future. The U.S.

Justice Department has opened two probes of orthopedics

makers in the past two years, including an antitrust

investigation in which Smith & Nephew PLC, of the U.K., has

confirmed that one of its independent sales representatives

tried to initiate an industry-pricing strategy in response to

a U.S. hospital's bid request. Other producers, including

those in Warsaw, have said they didn't respond to the

suggestion.

The big implant makers also received a separate batch of

subpoenas in early 2005 regarding an investigation of any

financial ties between them and surgeons who recommend their

products. Doctors work closely with device makers to develop

and refine artificial joints, and the companies have long

paid surgeons as consultants and designers.

At least for now, though, Warsaw's orthopedics businesses

continue to hum. The industry got its start here over a

century ago, when a Canadian pharmacist, Revra DePuy, came up

with the idea of making flexible splints to replace the

wooden barrel staves then used to set broken bones.

The company he created thrived and exists today as DePuy

Inc., a unit of Johnson & Johnson. It eventually spawned

other companies, as people left to start competing

operations. Indeed, Warsaw's largest employer is Zimmer

Holdings Inc., founded by a DePuy salesman who broke out on

his own in the 1920s. Today, about 60% of the workers who

live within seven miles of Warsaw are directly or indirectly

engaged in orthopedics manufacturing, says Joy McCarthy-

Sessing, president of the local chamber of commerce.

Such a concentration of one industry in such a small town

is unusual, but the larger phenomenon isn't unusual at all.

Many of the strongest U.S. manufacturers set up production

far away from urban centers, with their high taxes, labor,

and utility costs, and instead look for locations in small

towns, close to major highways and railways. Proximity to

transportation hubs allows for smooth logistics in an age of

just-in-time deliveries. Warsaw, for instance, sits astride a

highway, U.S. 30, connecting Fort Wayne and Chicago.

Economists have long known that businesses thrive when they

congregate in one place. Think of Hollywood movie studios, or

the Route 128 technology ring around Boston. The same holds

true in manufacturing. ``Companies that operate in clusters

have greater access to talent,'' explains Jeffrey Grogan,

partner at the Monitor Group, a Boston strategy consulting

firm. They also serve as fertile ground for start-ups.

Mr. Running's company, Deo Volente Orthopaedics LLC, is a

prime example. Mr. Running first met his partners, Rod Mayer

and Jeff Ondrla, when the three were working together at

DePuy in the early 1990s. Mr. Running and Mr. Ondrla are

engineers and inventors, and Mr. Mayer's background is in

sales.

Mr. Mayer got the idea for the company after seeing that

the market for ``extremity'' devices, such as plates and

screws for fixing broken wrists, wasn't then as developed as

it was for major joints, such as hips and knees. The three

were eager to get away from big-company bureaucracy.

And as often happens in the close confines of Warsaw, the

partners' connections stretch into their personal lives: They

were attending the same evangelical church in 2004 when they

launched the company. Deo Volente means ``God willing'' in

Latin.

The three men agree it is a hefty advantage to have so much

of what they need at their fingertips. ``It's a lot easier to

drive across town and visit a supplier then it is to pick up

the phone and try to talk through some complicated issue,''

says Mr. Ondrla.

Warsaw is dotted with small support businesses, from

packaging firms that specialize in super-clean processes to

machine shops. There are even multiple manufacturers of the

plastic trays and cases needed to pack orthopedic kits. A

total hip replacement, for instance, can require up to 22

cases of equipment and each case and tray is specially

designed.

The region surrounding Warsaw has long been home to the

U.S. automotive and machinery industries, churning out a

stream of skilled machinists, toolmakers and industrial

engineers. Orthopedics makers opening up shop in Warsaw found

a ready supply of skilled workers, particularly in recent

years as the more-traditional sectors have slumped.

Whole companies in the region have switched over to serving

the orthopedics industry in recent years, including the small

factory contracted to do most of the production for Deo

Volente: Three years ago, Micropulse Inc., of nearby Columbia

City, Ind., stopped doing any work for the automotive and

other old-line industries--which once accounted for over half

of its business--to focus on orthopedics.

``Half of our customers were closing, so we divorced them

all,'' says Brian Emerick, president of Micropulse. His

company is now growing 25% a year, he says.

In 1895, in this small town--which at that point was a lot smaller--a man named Revra DePuy founded DePuy Manufacturing in Warsaw. The problem back then was that they were using wooden barrel stays to do hips. So he thought a fiber splint would be better. So DePuy went on--and now is part of Johnson & Johnson--to become a major player there. In 1926, Justin Zimmer, a sales manager for DePuy, felt that he had a better idea for different types of splints, and he broke off and developed Zimmer Manufacturing, now based in Warsaw. In 1997, Dr. Dane Miller and a small group of innovators and entrepreneurs formed Biomet in Warsaw.

Today these three companies are headquartered in Warsaw, Indiana, and are three of the five biggest orthopedic companies in the entire world. Zimmer, for example, employs 8,300 people and has $33.9 billion in sales in 100 countries around the world. In addition in Warsaw, other companies have come up--a division of Medtronic that does spinal research and production; Orthopediatrics specializes in anatomically appropriate, unique instrumentation and biologics for pediatric and small-stature patients because they're going to take different sized elbows, shoulders and knees.

In addition, we have many tier one and tier two suppliers who are centered in this region--Paragon Medical, Micropulse and Symmetry are tier one suppliers to the orthopedic industry. C&A Tool, one of the remaining large-sized machine tool manufacturers in America, makes highly detailed parts that go into your body, takes tremendous precision, as they also do for NASA and for defense contractors because they've managed to survive by upgrading and putting in million-dollar equipment.

Now Warsaw and Kosciusko County, along with the State of Indiana and the Lily Foundation, are proposing to develop a BioCrossroads project. This is the type of cluster that we need in America. We can't all be hamburger flippers. We can't all work in retail stores. You have to have R&D centers and clusters that you fight as a community, as a State and as a Nation to protect, just like other countries fight to protect those. Now the reason that all of a sudden this has become relevant is that last week, a health care proposal was floated in the other body that proposes to tax medical device companies 10 to 30 percent. I would like to insert into the Record from The Wall Street Journal ``The Innovation Tax'' editorial.

[From the Wall Street Journal, Sept. 8, 2009.]

The Innovation Tax--How Max Baucus Knifed the Medical Devices Industry

Supposedly the Senate's version of ObamaCare was written by

Finance Chairman Max Baucus, but we're beginning to wonder if

the true authors were Abbott and Costello. The vaudeville

logic of the plan is that Congress will tax health care to

subsidize people to buy health care that new taxes and

regulation make more expensive.

Look no further than the $40 billion ``fee'' that Mr.

Baucus wants to impose on medical devices and diagnostic

equipment. Device manufacturers would pay $4 billion a year

in excise taxes, divvied up among them based on U.S. sales.

This translates to an annual income tax surcharge anywhere

from 10% to 30%, depending on the corporation.

Why $40 billion? No reason in particular, except that Mr.

Baucus needs to finance nearly $900 billion in new spending

and so he'll grab anything within arm's reach. While there

are some exemptions, such as tongue depressors and

eyeglasses, most of the devices tax will fall on hundreds of

thousands of products that are basic components of modern

medicine. Some are routine--surgical equipment, diabetes

testing supplies--while others are cutting-edge technologies,

like replacement joints, pacemakers, stents, and MRI and CT

scanners.

This new tax will eventually be passed through to patients,

increasing health-care costs. It will also harm innovation,

taking a big bite out of the research and development that

leads to medical advancements. The core of the industry

(excluding a few conglomerates like Johnson & Johnson) spent

about $9.6 billion on product development in 2007, according

to Ernst and Young. The Baucus tax is nearly half that, and

also exceeds $3.7 billion, the total venture capital invested

in device makers that same year.

Even if consumers will ultimately pay one way or another,

this tax also offers an instructive lesson in the perils of

industry dealmaking in President Obama's Washington.

Convinced by the White House that legislation was inevitable,

most of the health-care lobbies decided to negotiate and

pay ransoms so Democrats would spare their industries greater

harm. Sure enough, the device maker lobby, AdvaMed, was among

the ``stakeholders'' that joined with Mr. Obama in a Rose

Garden ceremony in May and pledged to ``save'' $2 trillion

over 10 years to fund his program.

AdvaMed was nothing if not a team player. It endorsed

Democratic inspirations like comparative-effectiveness

research and value-based purchasing, despite the danger that

under such centralized decision-making the government will

decide that the most effective and valuable treatments also

happen to be the cheapest--rather than those that are best

for patients. It also suggested a variety of other taxes that

would have resulted in a lower bottom line, much as Big

Pharma promised $80 billion in drug discounts and the

American Hospital Association agreed to $155 billion in

Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement cuts.

But the word on Capitol Hill is that AdvaMed's tribute

wasn't handsome enough for Mr. Baucus's tastes. The massive

new tax--which wasn't a part of any of his policy blueprints

released earlier this year--is in part retaliation. Partly,

too, the device makers simply don't have the same political

clout as the other big players, making them an easier mark.

Old Washington hands are saying the device lobby made a

``strategic mistake'' by not offering Mr. Baucus more

protection money, but the real mistake was trying to buy into

the ObamaCare process, instead of trying to defeat its worst

ideas outright.

And now it may be too late. As we've argued, liberal

Democrats think that merely allowing an industry to continue

to exist is a concession, and they're already taking the

pharma and hospital concessions and running them higher. In

the case of devices, patients will be left with higher costs

for fewer life-saving technologies.

This proposed provision would tax these companies 10 to 30 percent. Medical devices are currently paid for by hospitals. You don't declare that individually in Medicare or in any other health--it goes through a hospital. The hospitals have already been asked to lower their costs and put money into the system. So this would be a direct tax based on the sales and profits of these companies.

Now there are three classes of medical devices. The joke that occurred around this was, in class one, Q-tips are called a medical device. Well, we heard today that Q-tips are going to be exempt, as are condoms, as are home pregnancy tests, as are scented Maxi Pads. So I guess that's the good news. The bad news is that what isn't exempt is class two and class three, which are going to have huge taxes on these companies and will restrict innovation. What are they? Heart valves, automatic cardiac defibrillators, heart imaging machines, insulin pumps, hearing aids, electric wheelchairs, and of course, all orthopedic joints--spine and neck implants included with that. They are going to be taxed.

What in the world is going on here? I think that a lot of people are of the impression that this kind of stuff just comes, that somehow it magically appears. In fact, I've heard people say, Well, why don't we all just get on Medicare? Besides the fact that Medicare is broke, Medicare hasn't invented anything for hips. They only cover variable costs. No research comes out of Medicare. No research comes out of Medicaid. No research comes out of the Veterans Administration. All that's funded by private pay. All that's funded by profits of corporations.

And if you take away the profits, they aren't going to be developing special hips for 18-year-old soldiers who are shot up. They now have body armor, but they are getting shot in their joints and now have to live for the rest of their lives with that. They aren't going to do it for the little kids. As people live longer and have this in their bodies longer, they aren't going to do all the variations. They aren't going to be able to do custom orders. R&D will tend to be shot. It may move offshore. It may totally disappear. This tax would be a disaster to America, and I hope it can be defeated.

I wanted to briefly explain what happened to the Souder amendment in the student loan bill. We had worked out an agreement last night, and then I was occupied over in a border security hearing that was very important on SBInet and didn't make it over to the floor. I appreciate that Chairman Miller explained the compromise some, but I wanted to go through a little bit of what the history of this is.

First, in existing law, both a possession conviction and a dealing conviction will result in your loss of a student loan. You can get that loan back by going through treatment, drug testing. You can get it back in the second year.

The second time it happens--this is while you have a loan--if you get convicted, then you would be suspended for 2 years, unless you went through treatment and then were drug-tested as clean. The third time and you're out. Now, for dealing, it was two times.

There's been a lot of ruckus about how this law was initially applied, but we fixed that. I had no intention ever of punishing people who at some time in their life had problems, whether it was in high school or in their later life that they had convictions.

I believe in forgiveness. I believe it's important that people get back on the right track. I believe that we need to work in our prison population to get them to move back to school, to get the degrees possible.

The initial debate on this law on the House floor and in committee said: You will lose your loan. You can't lose a loan if you don't have a loan. We had debate about that for many years. We got that fixed. But I believe, overwhelmingly, every poll shows that the American people believe that if you are convicted, which is not easy when you're on a college campus, while you're getting taxpayer funding, you should lose the funding. It doesn't mean you're going to lose school. It doesn't mean you're going to go out. But why should the taxpayers fund you if you're going to be basically drug-addled while you're at school?

The challenge with this debate is that it has become kind of a cause celebre in the marijuana community. As this progressed, as we did the reauthorization on student loans, the so-called Souder amendment was not completely knocked out, but possession was knocked out. We left the law in place for dealing.

So my amendment today would have reinstated possession as a grounds for losing a student loan.

Congressman Perlmutter from Colorado came to me and said he had a suggested compromise. He made his compromise, which basically says that conviction of a felony offense of narcotics

for possession, in addition to dealing--dealing is already covered in the Democratic bill--but would make felony conviction for possession also grounds for losing your student loan. Presumably, that's State and Federal felony conviction.

Now, in this, I was faced with several choices. One, I'm a Republican in a Democratic Congress. I was probably going to lose today. This was a practical way. I didn't want to see possession go out of the bill.

It basically means that marijuana won't be covered. If you have that much marijuana in your possession to be a felony, it probably means you're a dealer. You wouldn't have that much if you weren't a dealer. It's far more than individual use.

It basically covers meth, cocaine, and all sorts of other drug convictions for felony possession. It means the United States Government still stands on record saying that both possession and dealing should restrict your ability to get a student loan.

But there are some other practical things here. A lot of States, I believe, falsely and wrongly overrode Federal marijuana laws by decriminalizing marijuana, declaring that it was medical in some States when, in fact, marijuana is not medical. There are ingredients inside of marijuana that can be medical. We have Marinol, for example, that deals with that.

But they affect chaos in marijuana laws across the United States. It's very similar to what we are dealing with in Canada, as I debated up there as they proposed changing laws, and now Mexico has; and that is when different provinces have different laws and there's complete chaos in the laws, the Federal courts are not likely to uphold a law because it would be unequal enforcement.

So how would an Indiana student get denied a loan but a California student wouldn't get denied a loan? What about if it's somebody from Indiana who's in California going to school? What about if you're taking an online course combined with going to class, and the online course is based in California but you're going to school in Indiana? It's chaos. I do not believe, even had I won, the courts would have upheld my provision.

This shows, in fact, Republicans and Democrats can work together. It's very difficult on the major fundamental debate arguments. For example, I felt this was a Federal takeover of private lending and will lead to more Federal takeover and a national bank.

So we weren't going to be able to agree on the loans. But it doesn't mean inside, even on controversial provisions, that we can't work together. So I wanted to explain that, and I want to thank Chairman Miller and Congressman Perlmutter for working with me.

Mr. Chairman, I want to thank my friend from Texas.

I strongly support this bill, but I do so with some reservations. I would like to discuss some of the pressures that the government has put on a region like mine. My district is number one in manufacturing jobs and number one in percent in manufacturing, and actually gained slightly over number two last year because we lost fewer jobs than other areas of the country in manufacturing.

Without core value-added industries, our country is in deep trouble. I grew up in retailing. Retailing and service industry and so on circulate the money among themselves. To add value to our country, it can be in software, it can be in manufacturing or agriculture, but it has to be something that has a value-added addition to the economy.

Now, the challenge we have in our country, for a variety of reasons, to improve our environment, to improve the safety of our workers, to make sure we have pensions and health care, our costs have soared compared to our international competition because government has put additional pressures because we as a society felt they should be there.

But that means as the companies in my district go to make a product, they

start with costs that are higher than other countries start in their costs. We then watch China cheat on the currency, anywhere from 20 to 80 percent, and we expect our manufacturers who are already disadvantaged in price competition to compete with countries that don't even play fair in international currency that further artificially lower their prices.

Now the challenge we have is that when we make a car or a pickup, we start with a huge disadvantage in price, and then compound that with currency changes, and then we wind up trying to sell more value-added units. In other words, just like a house gets most of the profits from adding a bigger kitchen, a bigger bedroom, we get value from making bigger cars, making bigger trucks, making SUVs and vans, in order to pay pensions and health care.

Then, all of a sudden, the world shifts. We start to mandate that you're going to have to get higher mileage. And where are we to get R&D dollars to do that? How are we to reduce the cost to be able to compete; that as we look at the cap-and-tax bill in my area, the number one manufacturing area, we're 85 percent coal and 15 percent nuclear. We don't have a lot of wind and solar that's going to be able to employ many of these people who had a middle class lifestyle, the American Dream, because they worked at these different factories, they worked to upgrade them. They're doing every lean management technique they can possibly do in these companies. How are they supposed to keep their jobs if we raise the energy costs in the manufacturing area of the United States?

It's not an accident that the four districts hardest hit are my district, Congressman Donnelly's in the South Bend area, Congressman Latta, just over to the other side of Ohio, and Congressman Jordan's, because of the energy use we have, combined with the heavy manufacturing.

Then we look at additional health care costs on these companies. The question becomes how to survive. They have no dollars for the R&D to meet these new demands. A bill like this, then, becomes essential. We don't really have money right now to spend. In case anybody hasn't figured out, we have incredible deficits.

I don't believe that this is really the role predominantly for the Federal Government to do. But I'm now left representing a district that, unless the Federal Government does this, and having piled on the mandates and having allowed China to cheat in international trade, unless we do this, I don't know how we survive. I don't know how the people in my district survive.

This program authorizes $2.85 billion to conduct vehicle research and development. It has $1.75 billion to create a new demonstration program to find commercial applications to reduce or eliminate petroleum use and emissions in passenger and commercial vehicles. There's $1.1 billion to implement a similar program that applies to medium- and heavy-duty commercial vehicles.

I first want to thank my neighbor, friend, and colleague--it shows that you can do things in a bipartisan way--Congressman Joe Donnelly, along with Congressman DeFazio, for making sure that RVs were included in this. Between us, we have 58 percent--between Joe and I, and then Congressman DeFazio has another chunk--of the RV industry in America.

This is a huge challenge. Guess what? Not only do you have these motor homes, of which 12 percent, I believe, of American people own either a towable or a mobile home, but you have to have a big vehicle to tow them. You can't tow them with a little, tiny car. We've got to figure out how we're going to deal with the mileage in that.

I also have the largest pickup plant in the United States, a Silverado and Sierra pickup plant that's actually getting a plus-up that is heavily robotics. But they need the technology, even though they're some of the most efficient pickups sold by any company. If they're going to compete with the mileage standards and GM is going to survive, they need to find new breakthroughs.

Navistar has just contracted to build electric delivery trucks in an abandoned RV plant in Elkhart County in Wakarusa, in my district. Alcoa, in Auburn, in my district, is working with aluminum to try to reduce the weight of the vehicles.

As we heard in steel, in my area I have two massive SDI, Steel Dynamics plants, as well as a whole bunch of supplementary facilities from OmniSource and others who provide recycled steel to them.

I have five Nucor facilities in my district, that if our steel is going to compete and get the weight down and get different methods, we're going to have to have more innovation and research.

Navistar also at this point has around 1,350 to 1,500 jobs in my area doing engineering and designing big trucks, military vehicles. We have a challenge in this in the military area, too, because the Humvee is done in Congressman Donnelly's district, but the engine blocks and the hood and a lot of those parts that we're constantly struggling with on weight, are in my district as well.

I rise in support of this bill, even though I'm reluctant to have the government take over big parts of the R&D industry. We're in fact seeing other countries do this around the world. I don't know how we're going to achieve our goals to become greener, to get more efficient vehicles to help save our industrial base in the United States, if we don't do this.

So I rise in support of this. It's why the manufacturing groups support it, why the Chamber supports it, it's why the unions support it, because without some assistance it is not clear how in the world we're going to save the manufacturing jobs in America that are so critical to the industrial base.

And one last point. The industrial base that does the trucks, that does the RVs, that does the pickups, also does our military. And if we don't have the basic core manufacturing, it is not clear how we stay an independent Nation.

I thank our ranking member.

The loud sound you hear is the big gulp of the public option swallowing the private option. We hear all kinds of excuses why it's not the same, but here are some of the key business points to remember here: There has already been confusion in the quotes here on the floor about this 7 percent that the private sector has between revenues, which is the loan income that the banks receive, and their profits. There's also confusion between the net profit and the gross profit. The gross profit has all the expenses coming out, whereas the net profit is the bottom line, which is a relatively small number.

The reason this is important is that government, if they take this over and swallow the whole public sector into the public option, will have basically the same costs. Only when you compare cost to cost, the government can't deliver at the same price as the private sector. It never has, it never will in any category in the history of the United States.

Now in this expense question--and we've argued about this for years-- one of the things that's clear is that the Federal Government doesn't depreciate. So fixed expenses, like buildings, aren't counted in their expenses that come off of the net profit, because that's a different budget. We do buildings in one appropriations bill, in one lump sum. It is not something that you would amortize over time.

Mixed expenses--for example, the expenses at the Department of Education, such as lighting in the building, even in many cases staff-- aren't assigned to the student loans. They're assigned to the Department of Education. But even then when you ask the private sector to compete, even paying in that profit, 80 percent of the colleges chose the private sector because the service delivery was better. In fact, hopefully, the government is going to be wise enough here that they're going to contract out with the private sector at the end of the day to deliver much of these services because there is no capability in the Federal Government to deliver this.

Now the proposal, on the face of it, isn't even plausible that we're hearing about all these new funding programs when the net profit out of the private sector is minimalist compared to the new program. So where does this money come from? The best I've been able to determine is it's a different method of borrowing. Banks have to use the LIBOR rate, the interbank lending rate, whereas we are apparently going straight to the Fed and Treasury. That's merely a transfer of government funds that are off budget onto budget but still reduces the liquidity in the banking system, and it's being used to subsidize the new programs in the student loans.

Now why does this become important? Why won't the same grounds apply to SBA? Because if SBA goes directly into this same fund, there's no reason to use a bank. On what grounds do we use banks for farmers' loans? If they're going to borrow the money directly from the Treasury and the Fed, they can borrow it cheaper than any bank, and that we should eliminate any loans that are going through anywhere in the private sector where there is a government alternative.

Thank you.

The key question here is, the constitutional authority of the Federal Government is to regulate interstate

commerce. Then we have the Federal Reserve System that was set up to provide a balance and stability in the funding of the United States. What we did not create is a national bank.

This bill is the beginning of the creation of a national bank, and that there is no logical reason why every other lending category won't become a national bank, too. That's the big gulp we are hearing here and in many other areas, a massive government takeover in category after category.

Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Res 556 recognizing the 75th Anniversary of the Federal Credit Union Act and to acknowledge the great work of credit unions throughout the Third Congressional District.

Indiana has a long history with credit unions and in fact, was the first Midwestern state to pass a law permitting their founding. In October of 1923, the first credit union in the Midwest opened its doors in Indiana. Today there are 206 credit unions throughout my state that count over 2 million Indiana residents among its members.

The Federal Credit Union Act of 1934 was originally passed, in part, to help make credit available to underserved communities. These financial cooperatives were organized by people primarily tied together by some common bond. Today, credit unions continue to provide unique services to both their members and communities.

The Chiphone Federal Credit Union of Elkhart, IN has been providing service since 1947 and today has over 17,000 members. They have strong ties to the community and received honorable mention from the Indiana Credit Union League in both the Dora Maxwell Awards and Louise Herring Awards which recognize outstanding efforts in social responsibility and community service and the credit union that best puts the credit union philosophy in action respectively.

In Auburn Indiana, DeKalb Financial Credit Union provides both superior financial service and to support local charities through service activities and donations. The Relay for Life, March of Dimes and WFGA Kite Fly have all

benefitted from its community-oriented philosophy. DeKalb Financial serves as a drop off point for Food Bank donations and this past year provided five area students scholarships for college. In addition, DeKalb Financial continues to be a proud corporate sponsor for one of the area's National Historic Landmarks, the Auburn Cord Duesenberg Museum.

The East Allen Credit Union provides quality financial services for over 2,400 members. Whether it is helping its members plan for the costs of college or assisting in the purchase of the new family car, East Allen has been an asset to the New Haven community for nearly 45 years.

Financial Members Federal Credit Union of Auburn, Indiana has been delivering quality service to the people of DeKalb County since 1972. During its years of operation, it has contributed to its valued members and surrounding community by providing low-cost financial products and service activity and donations.

In Woodburn, IN, the Financial Partners Federal Credit Union has been providing sound financial services to residents and employees of East Allen County for over 40 years. Through its regular contributions to the area food bank and the ice cream socials it hosts for its members, Financial Partners illustrates the personal attention and community- oriented service that make credit unions such unique institutions.

Founded over 75 years ago, The Fire Police City County Federal Credit Union of Fort Wayne, IN not only provides great service to its members, but has won awards from the Indiana Credit Union League for both community involvement and for demonstrating the credit union philosophy in its activities. Activities such as Making Strides Against Cancer, fundraising for the Turnstone Center for Disabled Children and Adults and volunteering for Fire Prevention Week are emblematic of credit unions commitment to the community.

Indiana Lakes Federal Credit Union in Warsaw, Indiana has been delivering quality, low cost financial services to the people of Kosciusko County for over 30 years. During this time, it has proved to be a tremendous asset to its 3,600 members and has contributed to the community through various forms of service activities and donations.

In Elkhart, IN, INVOA Federal Credit Union recently contributed $5000 to Project Healing Water to assist in its mission to aid the recovery of wounded, injured, or disabled veterans by introducing them to fishing and using these skills for lifelong recreation. Credit Union employees personally raised the funds and the contribution was used to help transport and host veterans at the 2009 event along the Albany River in Ontario, Canada. INOVA is also supporting the economic growth of its community and has partnered with the City of Elkhart to provide free internet service along the downtown Riverwalk and promote future downtown development. This commitment to service is exemplified by its President and CEO, Dallas Bergl, who recently received the Indiana Credit Union League's Professional Achievement award for his support and promotion of credit union ideals throughout Indiana.

In Goshen, Indiana, the Interra Credit Union has been recognized by the Indiana Credit Union League in nine consecutive years for its service activities. These include a financial pledge of $10,000 to assist Goshen College fund the construction of a new music building, annual scholarships for high school seniors, along with regular involvement in events like the American Cancer Socity's Relay for Life and the Michiana Menenonite Relief Sale. Interra also works to improve youth financial literacy by providing lessons and educational resources on budgeting, credit, investment and savings.

For over 70 years, ITT Employees Federal Credit Union has provided its members and community with first-rate service. Its efforts have led ITT to be recognized as the best credit union in Fort Wayne by an area newspaper survey. The nearly 4000 members of ITT are fortunate to have such a dedicated organization providing them financial services.

In my District, the Three Rivers Credit Union of Fort Wayne, Indiana was honored for its efforts to help alleviate poverty and was awarded 2nd Place in the 2008 national Dora Maxwell Awards for social responsibility. As the primary sponsor of ``Canstruction,'' it brought together high school students and staff from various engineering and design firms to create giant structures entirely out of canned food. Over 80 members of the Three Rivers Credit Union volunteered for the event that resulted in a donation of 83,529 cans of food to the community food bank, the largest single donation in its history.

In Fort Wayne, IN the newly founded Union Baptist Federal Credit Union personifies the personal attention and community-oriented service that makes credit unions such unique institutions. Believing in self- sufficiency through empowerment, the Union Baptist Credit Union provides its 309 members quality financial services and is a welcomed addition to the Fort Wayne community.

United Credit Union in Warsaw, Indiana has been delivering quality service to the people of Kosciusko County since 1997. During the past 12 years, it has contributed to its valued members and surrounding community through service activity and donations.

The Weatherhead Federal Credit Union of Columbia City, IN provides quality financial service to over 2,000 members. Whether it is through financial counseling or low cost home loans, Weatherhead has been a tremendous asset to the Columbia City community for nearly 45 years.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to express my support for H. Res. 447 and recognize the American Council of Engineering Companies for its 100 years of service to the engineering industry and the Nation. In Indiana, the American Council of Engineers has been active for 50 years and currently represents over 100 firms throughout the state.

The engineering industry has been responsible for tremendous developments in the transportation, environmental and energy infrastructure that contribute to our economic success. Indiana has long been known as the ``Crossroads of America'' and our transportation infrastructure is fundamental to our economic health. Engineers design and create critical infrastructure to help ensure the goods we produce in our area are able to move to market.

My Congressional District is the manufacturing center of the country and has the highest percentage manufacturing jobs in the United States. However, in recent years, these positions are increasingly becoming more hi-tech and require higher levels of skills and training.

The American Council of Engineering Companies of Indiana is helping to meet this need through college scholarship programs that awarded $17,500 in 2009 to Indiana residents who are pursuing a Bachelors or Masters in engineering at an Indiana school. With programs like Project ``Lead the Way,'' the American Council of Engineering Companies partners with Middle Schools and High Schools to promote engineering, and make science and math relevant to young students by demonstrating how these technical skills can be applied in every day life.

Through these educational outreach programs, the American College of Engineering Companies is working to address the need for a skilled workforce and helping to generate interest in the math and science skills necessary for the next generation to succeed in our competitive global economy.

I ask my colleagues to join me in recognizing the American Council of Engineering Companies on its 100th year anniversary.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to express my support for Senate Joint Resolution 9, and recognize Dr. France A. Cordova on her appointment as a citizen regent of the Smithsonian Institution's Board of Regents.

The Smithsonian's governing board is comprised of 17 members. These members include the Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, the Vice President of the United States, six Members of Congress, and nine citizens who are nominated by the board and approved jointly in a resolution of Congress. The nine citizen members serve for a term of 6 years each and are eligible for reappointment to one additional term.

Having already established herself as an internationally recognized astrophysicist, and a national leader in postsecondary education, France A. Cordova is currently the 11th President of Purdue University. Known as the first woman and youngest person to hold the position of NASA chief scientist from 1993 to 1996, Dr. Cordova still follows her love of science. Currently, Dr. Cordova and two colleagues have a collaborative experiment flying on the European Space Agency's X-Ray Multi-Mirror Mission.

Prior to joining Purdue in 2007, she served in the University of California system for 11 years, first as the Professor of Physics and Vice Chancellor for Research at UC Santa Barbara and then as the Distinguished Professor of Physics and Astronomy and Chancellor for UC Riverside. Cordova's scientific career contributions have been in the areas of observational and experimental astrophysics.

She has published more than 150 scientific papers and continues to pursue scholarly research. Dr. Cordova was also the winner of NASA's highest honor, the Distinguished Service Medal. As an influential leader in science policy and education, she also serves on numerous state and national boards, most recently accepting an appointment to the Board of Trustees for the Mayo Clinic in May 2008 and a six-year presidential appointment to the National Science Board, effective November 2008.

Dr. Cordova's honors and awards are almost as numerous as the stars in space that she studies. Her accomplishment in the field of astrophysics and her leadership as the head of a national research university provide her with tremendous experience that will benefit the Smithsonian's board and help improve its mission for the increase and diffusion of knowledge. Her impact on education and science has been remarkable.

I will conclude in saying that Dr. France A. Cordova would be an out of this world addition to the Smithsonian Institution's governing board. It will be an honor and pleasure to have her serve on that board, and I ask my colleagues to support Senate Joint Resolution 9.

With the embarrassing demise of Mr. Jones, the czars debate has escalated even beyond where it was when we left for the July break. Depending on how you count, there are some 30 czars. It's been said, in many different places actually, that there are more czars in this administration than the Romanovs who ruled Russia for three centuries had czars. There's an energy czar, an urban czar, an infotech czar, a faith-based czar, a TARP czar, a stimulus accountability czar, a non-proliferation czar, a terrorism czar, a regulatory czar, a Guantanamo closure czar, a climate czar, a cyberspace czar, many more. They even had for a while a de facto car czar, Steve Ratner, who wasn't a czar but ultimately he became the car czar even though initially they said there wasn't going to be a car czar.

Now, the challenge here is that this appears to be an extra- constitutional approach. Now, the Constitution says government officers with significant authority, principal officers of the government, are to be appointed by the President subject to approval by the Senate.

Now, this has been interpreted, with the expansion of government, even to go five layers down; that they're expected to have delineated duties, deputy secretaries, assistant deputy secretaries, directors of different offices, come up to congressional committees, come up to the Hill, if not actually to get approved by the Senate, but at least to be accountable for what they do. We have it in the Government Reform and Oversight Committee, we call in many of these different people who have all sorts of delineated duties.

Now, a clear way to avoid the checks and balances of this system is to put them under the White House rather than having a delineated position. This gives them potentially a consulting position as though they were a policy person at the White House, even though they're moving through the bureaucracy. The motive behind this obviously is that many things are not just in one department. For example, almost any of these different categories; obviously faith-based czar, there are departments in each part of the administration. TARP crossed multiple things. Terrorism crosses many of the departments. So the question is, when you have a traditional line structure, what do you do when you have things kind of stove-piped, and how do you interrelate with this?

Well, it's one thing to have advisers in the White House. Quite frankly, the Bush administration was pushing the edges of this in their faith-based office that went from an office inside the White House to then appointing a faith-based office in each department that then the faith-based policy person had some influence over, although it wasn't as direct.

By calling somebody a czar presumably means they have the power of the President to go behind and use their staff authority as though they were line, which is exactly what the founding fathers were debating about. There's a great new book, Plain Honest Men--The Making of the American Constitution, by Richard Beeman, a professor at the University of Pennsylvania. It's the first update probably in about 30 years of actual minutes, letters and things during the constitutional debates. And one thing through that book you constantly see is they couldn't agree on what powers the President was supposed to have. They went back and forth. Alexander Hamilton got so mad because he wanted it to be a permanent position that went basically for life, like a Supreme Court Justice, and he stormed out of the convention for nearly 30 days, only came back to sign it. So clearly there was a debate, and Hamilton lost, for accountability and a checks and balances of the system. And the czar approach is avoiding those checks and balances.

Now, my friend and colleague, Congressman Kingston has introduced a bill, the Czar Accountability and Reform Act, the CZAR Act, that has three simple points to it. The person has to have advice and consent of the Senate. He is to not be exempted from the competitive service by reason of confidential, policy-determining, policy-making or public- advocating character, which is kind of the debates we've had on the task forces around health care. With the former President Clinton it came up in multiple debates in the last White House where they say that Congress can't get e-mail oversight, we can't call certain people up because it's a policy-making decision, advice to the President. This bill would say it doesn't apply to a czar.

And also if they perform or delegate functions which but for the establishment of such task force, council, or similar office would be performed or delegated by an individual in a position to which the President appoints an individual by and with advice and consent of the Senate, which basically means a czar can't take authorities from people who would have been approved by the Senate.

Now, we actually have a model for this. It's the Office of the National Drug Control Policy. The so-called drug czar was the first czar. But we actually have legislation that guides his budget, that even gives the duties and delineation of his duties and the deputy director's duties and other people underneath it. It says which things he has line authority for. As chairman of the committee that did the last five-year reauthorization of this, we had all sorts of how high- intensity drug trafficking areas are supposed to be used; the national youth anti-drug media campaign; the counter drug technology assessment center. We had appropriations for his staff and how much he would have for his staff and how much for his appropriations. We had specifics on how he was going to relate to the Department of Interior, the Department of Agriculture, the Attorney General, homeland security, defense. We had guidelines of what reports come to Congress and of the different relevant committees. Because while Government Reform had primary jurisdiction over the drug czar, it also went to Judiciary, to Energy and Commerce and other committees, so there were different reporting strategies. In fact, czar was a slang term up until this administration.

For example, in high intensity drug trafficking area it says, ``Designation--The director, upon consultation with the Attorney General, Secretary of Treasury, Secretary of Homeland Security, heads of the National Drug Control Program agencies and the Governor of each applicable State may designate any specified area of the United States as a high-intensity drug trafficking area.'' That's explicit. That's not somebody wandering around with undefined authority. He's got a specific budget and so on.

Here's the great irony. We had one czar who was in the cabinet, approved with the advice and consent of the Senate with a specific budget. And our current director of the Office of National Drug Control, Gil Kerlokowski, is a good man and would have been clearly cleared. But this administration chose to take the one czar that was approved with advice and consent of the Senate and take him out of the Cabinet, and now he's not certified either. So now even the one czar who has descriptions, who was following the pattern under this administration, has been changed. And the danger here is we do not know how the interrelationships between the people cleared by the United States Senate are working with noncleared people. We run into background check problems like Mr. Jones. But we run into other huge questions, and that is so much power centered in one place that's not accountable to Congress, that it's not even clear how we do oversight of that function.

I criticized the last administration when they did too much of this and we had some back and forth about why they wouldn't appear in front of the different committees, even on policy advisers. We need to have direct, aggressive oversight in this House and in the Senate to find out how this is working, how decisions are being made, who's commanding what, and are the people now running the agencies' hands tied. The people who we delineated their duties, who were cleared with advice and consent of the Senate, are their hands now tied by a bunch of people who haven't gone through this process, who haven't been vetted, who do not have clear line authority, but are using the staff power coming out of the President of the United States to usurp the constitutional power of those who are designated principal officers and commanded by the Constitution to report to the House and Senate.